


Strange Magic

by sebviathan



Series: Strange Magic [1]
Category: Psych
Genre: Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Ableism, Case Fic, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Witches, angst and fluff and humor and all that jazz, formatted like an episode except it's Lassiter-centric, mentions of sexual assault NOT pertaining to canon characters, takes place early season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 13:41:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4668716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlton Lassiter stopped believing in magic a long time ago. So when a woman claiming to be a witch "curses" him with bad luck for being rude, and tells him a "true love's kiss" is the only thing that can break it, it's only in his nature to laugh it off. How much can his nature stand, though, when his luck actually begins to plummet—when it affects not only him, but the case, and furthermore, when it's bad enough that <i>Spencer</i> becomes the rational one?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Carlton Lassiter can be an ableist, classist asshole sometimes. Sorry. Just know that the things he says and does don't reflect my personal beliefs.
> 
> Also, this fic takes place soon after 5x04 _Chivalry Is Not Dead... But Someone Is_. Meaning everything up until then has happened as said in canon, and everything after is divergent. Obviously most of the same cases would still happen, though—they'd just happen differently.

**1975**

 

As much of a goody-two-shoes, tryhard, teacher's pet-slash-bookworm as Carlton may admittedly be, he's just as excited as all the other first-graders for the start of winter break. He hops off the schoolbus with a haste to get home, relishing the rare cold breeze of a California winter.

He wishes that they could live further north where it actually snowed, but then he supposes he wouldn't like it being so cold  _all_  the time.

It's thoroughly satisfying to be able to shut the front door behind him and drop his backpack on the floor, knowing he won't have to pick it up again for two whole weeks. He  _will_ , of course, since his books are in there and he loves to read, but he won't  _have_  to. That's the fun part.

"Don't just leave your bag there, Carlton," his mother says sharply before he can walk much further. "Take it to your room."

Okay, he won't have to pick it up again for two weeks starting  _now_.

"And then come back out here, I need to talk to you about something!" she calls after him.

If Carlton was a misbehaved child, he would be nervous. But he always does his chores and he's never gotten in trouble at school (except once, for being "too much of a tattle-tale"), so he has no reason to think his mother might be about to lecture him.

And yet, when she gestures for him to sit down with her, she looks anything but happy.

"Listen, Carlton... I shouldn't have waited until Christmas vacation to tell you, but—"

"Mrs. Green says we should call it winter vacation," he tells her, and a moment later he feels bad for interrupting, but his mother is frowning at him so he has no choice but to explain: "Since... not everyone celebrates Christmas."

"Mrs. Green sounds like a liberal hippie," his mother snaps. "We celebrate Christmas, so it's Christmas vacation.  _Anyway_. I just want to let you know that money is tight this year, so I don't want you to get your hopes up too much about presents."

It makes sense for a second, but then he realizes, and Carlton's face screws up in confusion.

"But what about Santa?"

That makes his mother sigh and put her hand on his shoulder. He still doesn't understand until she looks him straight in the eyes and says, "There is no Santa Claus. I'm sorry, Carlton, but he isn't real."

He feels betrayed—like his heart has dropped into his stomach. Why would adults everywhere just lie about something like that? How could everything that makes up the magic of Christmas just be... _made up_?

"Now don't you start crying—I didn't want to tell you this early, but it's better to know Santa doesn't exist than to think he doesn't care about you, isn't it?"

Carlton looks at his mother's sympathetic, yet stern face, and it just makes him angry. He doesn't feel any less betrayed, and it only makes it harder to hold back tears—but he does. Because he's a big boy, and big boys don't cry.

"...I guess," he finally agrees.

"Good," she punctuates with a pat on the back. "Don't go telling all the other kids that Santa isn't real, though. I don't want to get a whole bunch of calls from angry parents."

She starts to stand up after that, but Carlton isn't ready for this talk to be over. So he reaches out and grabs his mother's dress to stop her.

"Wait—does that mean the Easter Bunny isn't real, either?"

Sitting all the way back down, she frowns and sighs again. "Sorry, Carlton."

"...What about the tooth fairy?"

"Don't worry, you'll still get a quarter every time you lose a tooth! I have all thirty saved."

That's not nearly as reassuring as she seems to think it is.

But Carlton supposes that maybe it's better he finds out now and not later. As long as he's still getting presents and money, it can't be all bad.

Finally, with a very grown-up sense of resignation, he asks,

"So... what  _is_  real?"

For a second it looks like his mother is just fed up with questions, but then she smiles and tells him—" _God_  is real. That's all you need to know, Carlton."

Then with a kiss on the forehead she's up and across the room like she couldn't leave fast enough, announcing that she's about to start making dinner and that she'd like him to tidy up the kitchen while she does.

A minute later, while sweeping up crumbs from under the table, Carlton has one last question:

"Will Dad be home for Christmas, at least?"

When she turns to him in the next moment, she looks undeniably annoyed, but also a little sad. She averts her gaze back to the stove before responding.

"Don't get your hopes up, Carlton."


	2. Chapter 2

**Modern Day, 2010**

 

"I'm just saying, the name's misleading. They had electric instruments, yes, but at no point in time did the band have enough members to be able to call themselves an  _orchestra_. It's a lie, plain and simple."

"It's a  _pun_ , Shawn. Both on the phrase 'electric light' and 'light orchestra', which is a reference to their few cellos and violins. And you would know that if—"

"What relevance does  _electric light_  have? They had synthesizers, Gus, not lightbulbs. If they did make music with lightbulbs, though—now  _that_  would be impressive."

"You know that's right."

Carlton's heart jumps the moment he hears those two idiots walk into his earshot with their inane conversation, but it returns to its normal beat at his mental command. They're probably just here to pick up a check, he figures, and he can expect that they'll stay much longer than necessary just so Spencer can flirt with Juliet.

He's in no mood to watch that exchange, so he simply keeps his head down and ignores them as they walk past.

Except they  _don't_  walk past, but rather stop in front of his desk. And when Carlton looks up, Spencer makes an odd face at him.

"...What?"

"Your hair looks  _really_  stupid today," he says, so blunt that for a moment Carlton isn't sure that this is really happening. But he's used to feeling that way around Spencer. "It has that little curl thing at one end and it just does  _not_  work—you know what, it's a good thing I carry a travel-sized bottle of hair gel with me at all times."

He then pulls out said bottle and, before Carlton can protest, squeezes a drop onto his fingers and reaches forward to work it through one part of his hair, pushing the curl back and upward.

It's  _shock_  that's keeping him from slapping Spencer's hand away, he tells himself. And it's discomfort that's making his cheeks flush.

"Thaaaat's better," Spencer says, grinning as he pulls away.

Carlton arches an eyebrow. "Are you done?"

"Define 'done.'"

"Is that all you came here to do?" he practically growls. "Give me unwanted opinions about my hair?"

"Of course not, Lassafras—we're here to get a case."

Guster then gives his friend an impressed look and mutters, "Ooh, nice one."

"What, Lassafras?" Spencer mutters back. "Thanks, I've been saving it all week—"

Carlton loudly clears his throat to end their banter as soon as possible, annoyed and most certainly  _not_  jealous of their closeness at all.

"You just had a case last week—the one with Prescott and that old lesbian. What, did you use up the check already?"

"Psh, of course not," Spencer starts indignantly—

" _Yes_ ," Guster chimes in, at which Spencer's expression changes.

"We did. So we want another case."

"Well, we don't have one for you," Carlton tells him proudly. "So if you don't mind  _not_ wasting any more of my time—"

"What's that, then?" Spencer interrupts, pointing to the open folder on his desk.

"A suicide. Open and shut—ergo,  _not_  a case."

Fed up at this point (and honestly dying to make some kind of dramatic exit), Carlton closes the folder and stands up from his desk so he can go get the Chief to tell Idiots #1 and #2 to leave.

Naturally they follow him, and Spencer grabs his shoulder about halfway to Vick's office, asking to "At least let me take a look at it."

He rolls his eyes, but ultimately figures why not, and hands him the folder. "Knock yourself out."

And naturally, despite how  _sure_  Carlton feels that he was right about this being as simple as it seems, Spencer closes it after merely five seconds and says, with his usual smug look,

"Just as I thought. Not a suicide."

No way. No way he managed to deduce anything from  _five_  seconds of glancing through the case file, let alone any... "psychic vibrations."

Carlton scowls and folds his arms. "The guy lived alone. The only mail he had were bills. No known friends, no living family, no coworkers—he did his job online, for Christ's sake! Of  _course_  it's a suicide. Who could have that life and  _not_  want to kill themself?"

Just then Juliet shows up at his side, glancing between all three of them.

"Why are we still talking about the Kramer suicide? I thought it was open and shut—"

Simultaneously, Carlton turns and snaps "It  _is_ ," while Spencer says "It's not."

There's a pause and a charged glare between them before Spencer continues: "It may  _look_  simple, Jules, but the spirits are telling another story."

Juliet then smirks and folds her arms, but not in the defensive way that Carlton did. The fact that she's even  _sort of_  buying into this already is irrationally pissing him off—frankly, he thinks that whatever this is between those two is impeding her ability to be as good of a cop as she could be.

"Which is?" she asks.

Spencer responds with his usual stupid grin and by putting two fingers to his temple like he always does:

"This was, without a doubt—" And then he over-enunciates the last word in the way that only Shawn Spencer can—" _murder_."

"You got any evidence?" Carlton asks harshly.

After all this time, he doesn't know why he expects the answer to be no.

He feels mentally exhausted the moment Spencer "slips" into his "trance," but pays attention nonetheless. However obviously fake they are, he can't deny that Spencer has yet to be unhelpful on a case.

For a few seconds Spencer flails about, seemingly to find a pen, which he grabs from Juliet's desk—and then, with his eyes closed, he scrawls furiously on his own hand before dropping the pen to the floor. And then he shoves his hand in Carlton's face.

It's just barely legible.

"Lady Rowan's?" he reads aloud, raising an eyebrow.

Juliet leans over to get a look at it. "Is that the murderer, or—?"

"Hey, I know that place," chimes in a third person who turns out to be McNab, standing only a foot away. They all turn to look at him, and his eyes light up, desperate to be helpful. "It's a witch store near the Presidio District. Uh, Francine's friend Valerie goes there sometimes, and—"

"Wait!" Juliet cuts him off, turning back to the group. "Didn't Bill Kramer have some witchy stuff around his apartment?"

Carlton confirms by promptly giving a defeated look to Spencer, who's grinning and doing finger-guns at him.

"That's a lead if I ever heard one," Guster adds, slapping his friend on the back.

"...Fine," he grumbles. "But  _only_  because I haven't officially closed the case yet."

With that, Carlton turns on his heel and heads directly out of the station, and for the millionth time he reassures himself that there  _must_  be a non-psychic explanation for this—if for no other reason than the fact that Spencer never responds to the thoughts directed at him, no matter how loud he tries to think them.

As he hears Spencer whoop and call shotgun behind him, Carlton catches a glimpse of his hair in the side-mirrors on his car. He can't help but silently agree that the gel made an improvement.

 

* * *

 

It's a charming little store, nevermind the fact that Carlton believes everything it's selling is fake. As they walk in he notices no one at the counter, but a woman—presumably Rowan—pushes her way past a curtain of beads from the back after only a second.

The moment she sees him, she seems briefly surprised, but then dons an expression as though she recognizes him.

"You're here for stress-relief spells, I take it?"

"What?" He frowns, and then realizes.  _Am I really that obvious?_  "I—no, I've never believed in any of that woo-woo crap—"

"But then he saw her face," Spencer interrupts, quickly moving to the front of the group as everyone looks at him in confusion. "And now he's a believer. There's not a _trace_  of doubt in his mind."

He then nods solemnly, while Carlton drops his shoulders and screws up his face trying to figure out what the  _hell_  that's supposed to mean.

Guster then steps forward as well, clearly the first to understand. "Shawn, you know what I said about quoting Shrek—"

"Technically I wasn't quoting the movie, I was quoting a song  _used_ in the movie that was in fact written in 1967, long before Shrek came out. I'll also have you know that your hatred for the Shrek franchise is unfounded—you know the sequel was one of the highest-grossing films of all time—?"

" _Boys_ , please," Juliet finally says, to Carlton's relief. He gives them a look while they step up to the counter and she hands Rowan a picture of Kramer. "Do you know this man?"

She only has to glance at it for a moment before handing it back.

"Yes, that's Bill—he's a regular customer of mine. Has something happened to him?"

Juliet dons her sympathetic face with ease. "He was found dead in his apartment this morning. It's an apparent suicide, but—"

"But we have reason to believe he was murdered," Spencer finishes, stepping forward once again, now to his side.

"Uh,  _they_  do," Carlton corrects him. "I just think he was a sad, pathetic guy who had nothing going for him, and the fact that he shopped  _here_  on a regular basis kinda proves my point."

Out of the corner of his eye he notices Juliet gaping at him, but his attention is mainly grabbed by Rowan slamming her hand on the counter.

"Bill was  _not_  pathetic! Sad, perhaps, but not enough to kill himself. And who the hell are  _you_ ," she adds, pointing her long, painted fingernails at his face, "to walk in here and insult my shop?"

Oh, it's been  _too_  long since a civilian's yelled at him—

But before he can pull out his badge and bark his title, Spencer puts a cautionary arm over Carlton's chest and gives him a  _settle down_  sort of look. Maybe it's for the best.

"I think  _I_ should take it from here, Lassie...," he starts slowly, and then he turns his gaze. "I'm sorry about him, Rowan. Detective Lassiter may have a...  _difficult_  exterior, but if you get through enough layers he's really just a big ol' teddy bear. It's a lot of layers.  _Really_  deep. Like, so deep that you're starting to think that there really is nothing after all because it's been layer after  _layer_  of coldness and cynicism, and you just want to give up but then it's  _finally_  there—but anyway," he finally says when he notices Carlton scowling. "I'm Shawn Spencer, head psychic detective for the SBPD. Meaning that unlike him, and  _like_  you, I'm open to the realm of spirits."

Carlton rolls his eyes, but Rowan seems to have fallen for his act. It's no surprise, though—she's dressed like she belongs at Hogwarts or something. He has to wonder if there are drugs involved.

"I'll talk to Shawn, then. But  _only_  Shawn," she says, shooting Carlton a glare.

He has half a mind to threaten her with a charge of obstruction of justice, but with a serious look from Juliet, he backs off and lets Spencer do his thing.

Carlton avoids looking at them directly (because whenever he does, Rowan catches his eye and stops talking) and instead watches Guster mess around with stuff on the other side of the store while he listens.

From what he can gleam, Bill Kramer had been paranoid for approximately two weeks before his death. He'd been coming into Lady Rowan's and repeatedly asking about protective spells—ones meant to fend off dark magic, to maintain his good health, and to keep his home safe.

"He was afraid that someone was going to kill him." Spencer takes the words right out of his mouth.

"Yes, I think so," Rowan agrees.

"Did he ever say anything about  _who_  he thought was going to kill him?"

"No, he wouldn't tell me. I have no idea who would even  _want_  to—he was a nice guy. People liked him."

"Kramer had  _friends_?" Carlton asks skeptically, earning a scowl from Rowan.

Beside him, Juliet folds her arms and mutters, "We probably jumped the gun on deciding he was friendless based on his phone records..."

He hates that he agrees.

"Wait!" Spencer shouts abruptly, throwing one arm up in the air and putting a finger to his head. "I am having a  _very_  strong vision that the person who killed Kramer was, no doubt, a fellow witch."

"Are you seriously suggesting that Kramer was  _cursed_ , Spencer?" Carlton asks skeptically—though really, he shouldn't be. All things considered, he should have known their resident fake-psychic would come to this conclusion.

"You said it, not me," he smirks. And then he turns to Rowan again. "Are there any other stores like this in Santa Barbara?"

"Um... none that I know of. I believe I'm the sole provider for the witch community in this city."

" _Great_ _—_ do you think you can drum up a list of all your regular customers for us?"

"Yeah, I could print one out for your right now, actually. Just a second."

Rowan then slips past her beaded curtain to the back room, and the moment she's out of earshot, Carlton snaps.

"O'Hara, please tell me you do not believe that  _magic_  actually has anything to do this."

She hesitates to answer, at which Carlton's expression begins to shift into outrage.

"Okay—I'm not saying I wholeheartedly believe it," she says quickly, "but I mean, we work with a psychic almost every  _week_ , Carlton. And from what I can tell, some aspects of witchcraft  _are_  actual science, so who's to say that the rest isn't just science that we don't understand yet?"

For a moment, all he can do is just stand with his mouth hanging open, defeated. He thinks it might be shock.

"...Either I've gone mad, or you all have. Kramer was not killed by a curse, he was not a  _witch_ _—_ and  _this_  lady is not a witch, she just sells people overpriced incense and these...  _potions_ "—he pulls a bottle off of a shelf to look at it more closely—"that are obviously just water and food coloring—"

And then he bumps into the next shelf on accident, which causes a crystal ball to fall off and shatter on the floor.

Oh. Shit.

Carlton twists around to look at the mess, and several feet away, Spencer gasps.

"That's seven years bad luck, Lassie!"

"That's mirrors, Shawn," Guster says.

"I've heard it both ways."

"That doesn't even—"

"YOU!" Carlton (and everyone else) twists back around to see Rowan step out from the back room with fire in her eyes. If she wasn't crazy, he'd probably be attracted to her right now. "I've been getting bad vibes from you since the  _moment_  you walked in here. You insult me, you insult the  _craft_ , and that wasn't enough, so you had to destroy my things?"

At this point she's close enough to poke her finger into his chest, so Carlton puts the potion bottle back on the shelf and holds his hands up defensively.

"Listen, lady, it was an accident and I'll pay for it, you can cut the—"

" _Woo-woo crap_? Is that what you were going to say? You know what—you think what I do is crap, you're going to treat me like a fake, well how's  _this_  for fake?" She immediately grabs another crystal ball from the shelf and smashes it at her feet, startling everyone. "May you have  _terrible_  luck, Detective Lassiter. And may it get worse and worse until fate gives you everything you deserve."

Carlton can't help but laugh. Really, he doesn't know what else he could do. This whole situation is fucking ridiculous.

"Alright,  _Maleficent_... Listen, I'll pay for the glass ball that I broke, but you're on your own with the other one."

"I don't want your money," she stops him right as he reaches for his wallet. "You'll pay in better ways soon enough."

"If you say so. I save twenty bucks either way," he laughs, glancing at everyone else, though none of them seem to be laughing with him. Then he adds, mockingly, "What, you're not gonna give me a way I can break the curse?"

"Hm. Why not?" she shrugs. Her eyes do a sweep of the room and then she smirks, putting both hands on her hips. "Your luck  _will_  grow worse and worse as time goes on, but it can be reversed with... true love's kiss."

" _Wow_. You know what, I would arrest you for obstruction of justice, but this sideshow act has  _really_  turned my mood around. Those are the names?" Carlton gestures to the list in her hand, and she gives him a curt nod, so he grabs it. "Great. Which means we can get going."

He can hear both Juliet and Spencer apologizing for him as he pushes the door open, and then once it swings shut again and he sees them coming up on his peripheral—

"Good job, Spencer," he says with a proud grin. "You found someone  _just_  as delusional as you are."

"I dunno, Lassie, I wouldn't be too flippant about this," Guster advises. "She seemed like the real deal."

"I have to agree, Carlton," Juliet says as he rolls his eyes. "You were  _incredibly_  rude back there. Don't you believe in karma at all?"

"Karma, sure, but to the extent of a  _curse_? Hell no. Magic isn't real, O'Hara, and neither is ' _true love_.' But you know what is real? Murder. And  _if_  that's what this is, we have the list of wackjobs who might've done it right here."

Right as he lifts up the paper in his hand, he trips on a crack in the sidewalk and the wind pulls it out of his grip—but then Spencer manages to keep him from falling flat on his face by putting an arm out, and Juliet catches the list mid-air.

"...Don't tell me you think that's just a coincidence," Guster says in disbelief once he's balanced again.

Admittedly he's slightly ruffled, and that was extremely suspicious timing, but Carlton's hard-wired tendency to side with facts and logic prevails.

"Oh, please. If I was having bad luck, Spencer wouldn't have caught me."

 

* * *

 

The majority of the people on Rowan's list seem to only have known Bill Kramer in passing. They claim to have spoken to him once or twice while shopping at that witch store, but nothing further.  _He seemed nice_ , they all say.

Carlton is surprised to see that many of them actually have decent apartments rather than the hovels he'd expect hippies like them to have—and furthermore, many of them don't even seem like hippies. Aside from the witch paraphernalia around their homes, really, they seem like normal people.

It's unsettling. Despite the fact that there's no motive or even a connection from most of them (and despite the fact that he only started believing this could even  _be_  murder an hour ago) Carlton feels inclined to suspect each and every one of them.

"Pretty much everyone we've talked to so far is purely into white magic, Lassie," Spencer tells him when he voices that opinion aloud. "Harmless stuff like boosting motivation and healing spells. They're not gonna hurt anyone."

"Okay, I'll play along. Let's say that magic actually was real—"

"It  _is_ , but okay."

"Just because someone doesn't practice black magic, how can you say for sure they wouldn't hurt anyone in a non-magical way?"

That's where Guster buts in:

"Easy, Lassie. The magic they do is part of their way of life—a lot of these people aren't technically even witches, they're  _Wiccan_. Meaning they abide by a philosophy of respecting all life."

As far as Carlton's concerned, that doesn't mean anything for sure, but he has nothing to say to that. Spencer fills the silence anyway.

"Man, Gus, you're on fire today. Since when do you even know about this stuff?"

"Since forever, Shawn. Didn't I ever tell you my Jamaican grandma was super spiritual?"

Carlton attempts to tune them out for the rest of the walk back to the car, though that may have been a bad idea, since his slightly dulled focus causes him to step right on a pile of dog shit without noticing until seconds later.

_Dammit to hell..._

He tries to scrape it off onto the sidewalk (because he's not going to ignore it, these are  _nice_  shoes) in a way that the rest of the gang might not notice, because he knows what they're going to say—

"What's with the sudden limp, Carlton?"

"I'm fine, O'Hara."

"You'd probably have better luck scraping the dog shit off if you used the curb, Lass."

It feels slightly humiliating to own up and take Spencer's advice, but considering the circumstances it's probably better to not try to deny that he literally has  _poop_  on his shoe.

"You know, Lassie, you've been  _quite_  uncharacteristically clumsy ever since we left Lady Rowan's—"

"I swear to god if you say  _one_  word about me being cursed, Spencer..."

It's all in his head, he's sure of it. His subconscious is making him bump into things and not watch where he's going. But then he can't even say that, because that would be admitting that Rowan somehow got to him psychologically—and  _that_  would be nearly as bad as outright admitting he's been cursed. Which he  _hasn't_.

The first person from the list who actually knew Kramer personally is a one Olivia Lane, and she has  _guilty_  written all over her face from the moment she opens the door. For someone who didn't expect police to be showing up, and who "had no idea Bill was dead," she's awfully nervous to talk to them.

"A bit jumpy, aren't you, Olivia?" Carlton points out with a tone of mock-concern once she invites them in.

"Am I?" she asks with widened eyes. "I didn't—"

"Don't mind him," Spencer cuts in for the second time in the past few hours. "He's just grumpy because he was cursed with bad luck earlier today. Oh—I'm Shawn Spencer, head psychic detective for the SBPD, and this is my partner, Strange M'Agic."

"That's  _Strange_ _—_ M, top comma, capital A—gic," Guster clarifies, clearly already putting on a flirtatious stance.

"And we—along with Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara, but mostly  _me_ _—_ just want to ask you a few questions about your ex-boyfriend."

Olivia's eyes seem to lose the fear that was previously in them. "How did you—?"

Spencer just taps his temple impressively, and the girl smiles before leading them to her kitchen table.

"Lucky guess," Carlton mutters disdainfully under his breath.

"I dunno, she's kinda far out of Kramer's league," Juliet says. "It would be a pretty wild guess."

With Spencer and Guster being the first to sit down, there's only one chair left, and Carlton chooses to let Juliet take it. Not out of kindness, but because he feels better standing in this situation.

"So," he starts before Spencer can get another word in. " _Ex_ -boyfriend, then. Why'd you break up?"

"Oh—uh... well, we met through a mutual friend and dated online for a while, and it was nice, but he eventually wanted to meet me in person. And he did come over a couple times, but I guess he just got tired of dating someone who can't even leave their own apartment," she laughs nervously. "I can't really blame him."

There's a moment of confusion between the four of them, but then Juliet knocks her head back with a look of realization.

"Oh! She's an agoraphobe, Carlton—which is a pretty solid alibi."

"I'm sorry, Jules, but what does the fear of Rachel Weisz have to do with this?"

Carlton doesn't even have time to process Spencer's comment before Olivia corrects him:

"It means I don't go outside, ever. It's... actually _really_  bad, like if I were to step even a foot past my doorway, I would have a full-blown panic attack."

"Can you prove it?" Carlton asks, barely leaving room for a moment of sympathy.

"Come  _on_ , Lassie—"

"We believe you," Juliet says earnestly, giving Olivia an apologetic look. "But it would be helpful if you could provide some proof of diagnosis from a doctor, or...?"

"I have prescribed medication," Olivia offers. "Um. I'll go get it."

When she's out of sight, both Juliet and Spencer turn around to glare at him.

" _Please_  tell me you weren't actually planning on just pushing her out the door to see if she would have a panic attack."

"Yeah, _seriously_ , Lassie."

"Of course I wasn't," he says, trying his best to sound genuinely offended. "I meant the same thing you did."

Juliet turns back around, relieved, but Spencer seems to be able to tell that he's lying.

When Olivia returns with her prescription, Guster confirms that not only is she taking some seriously strong anxiety meds, but also that the doctor's name on her medication bottles is definitely real and, in fact, on his route.

So much for this one.

"Hold on," Spencer says after a moment, "Since you never leave your apartment, how are you a regular customer at Lady Rowan's?"

"Oh—I call in to make orders at least once a week. My friend Val picks them up for me. Actually, she does pretty much all my grocery shopping."

"I'm assuming you work from home, too—like Kramer?" Carlton asks. Maybe there's a lead there, if they happen to work for the same company.

"No, I actually... um. My dad pays my rent and bills, and I collect disability."

Carlton then regards her with a disapproving frown, likely making it clear that he doesn't like the idea of someone getting money from the government for doing nothing.

"Just one more question, Olivia," Juliet says with a sharp glance in Carlton's direction. "Since you dated Bill for some time, do you know if anyone on this list knew him personally—or anyone not on the list?"

"Um... oh, yeah, I know he was friends with Andre—he's the one who introduced us in the first place, actually. As far as I know that's it, though... He never mentioned anyone else."

Carlton promptly shifts his stance, too ready to leave. "Well, we know where we're headed next."

Juliet is right behind him after thanking Olivia for her help and getting the list back, but Spencer and Guster stagger back a bit—the former needing to convince that latter that "No, you  _cannot_  try to date an agoraphobe,  _stop it_."

Either way, they all have time to catch up when Carlton knocks his hip on the edge of the couch on his way out.

 

* * *

 

"Man, I can't believe Bill is  _dead_... I mean, yeah, he got real paranoid a couple weeks ago and stopped coming around, but I didn't think he would kill himself. He wasn't the type, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, he was just... the farthest thing from suicidal. But I guess you never actually know, right? Like, most of them don't even show any signs?"

"Well, that's the thing, Mr. Duval. We don't think he  _actually_  killed himself—we believe he was murdered." Carlton catches Spencer flashing a proud smile out of the corner of his eye, and he struggles not to smirk himself. There's also a slight change in Andre's expression that he can't quite place. "Do you have an alibi for last night?"

"Wait—hold on, you think  _I_  killed him?"

Carlton's hand twitches toward his gun, overly prepared for if this guy tries to escape—nevermind the fact that they're two stories up. People have jumped from windows trying to get away from him before.

"Well, you're currently the only person we know of who knew Kramer personally, and who doesn't have an alibi—unless you can give us one.  _Or_  if you can give us any other names, or any details about Kramer's personal life that could help us in this investigation."

Andre merely gapes for a few seconds, unable to defend himself, which makes it almost too easy for Carlton to liken him to a fish. He's reeling him in without even  _trying_.

"I... no," he eventually says, defeated. "I was in my apartment alone all night, and I can't prove it, but it  _is_  the truth."

"Let's try another question, then," Carlton says quickly, leaning forward in his seat with a smile. He can tell that Juliet probably wants to get a word in, but he's having too much fun. "What was your relationship with Kramer like?"

Andre sighs and pushes his hair back. "We were close friends, okay? I mean, I was his  _only_  friend. He wasn't a part of any covens, and the most interaction he even had with anyone else other than his ex-girlfriend was just professional. I was pretty much the only guy he felt comfortable talking to about personal stuff."

"Then why didn't he tell you about what was making him paranoid?" Juliet finally manages to ask before Carlton can.

"How am I supposed to know? Bill got paranoid out of nowhere. Like, one day he was fine, the next day I see him in Lady Rowan's and he won't say a word to me, won't even look me in the eye. Fuck, I've been worried  _sick_  about him—you have to believe me. I wouldn't hurt anyone, let alone my best friend—"

"Liar liar pants on fire!" Everyone turns to see Spencer, standing on the far end of the room with a hand to his head. He removes it after a moment, and then approaches the main group with a couple unnecessary theatrics. "Well, you're wearing shorts—but regardless, that rich cotton blend is very much on fire. And so are your well-toned calves."

"Is this going somewhere, Spencer?"

"Yes! Andre—I am sensing that you practice Hoodoo."

"Well, yeah—"

" _And_  that your practices include curses."

Andre hesitates to answer, and Carlton wants to roll his eyes at the notion that an actual curse might be involved with this, until he realizes: That's not the notion Spencer is making at all. But rather—

"You lied straight to our faces, just now! Clearly you  _would_  hurt someone, if you're trying to curse people. What else are you lying about, Duval?"

"I know one other thing!" Spencer shouts, putting fingers to his head again. "Bill Kramer is  _not_  your best friend, is he? You're  _his_ , but you have other guys you like way better than him. He told you everything, but it wasn't mutual. You even lied to  _him_  that he was your best friend... Shame on you, man.  _Shame_."

"Okay, so  _what_  if I let him think we were best friends? That's not a crime, is it?"

"No, but knowingly inhibiting a police investigation is," Juliet says seriously. "And you just told  _two_  direct lies to a detective. You're on thin ice here."

 _Not thin enough,_  Carlton thinks. Something about this guy has felt off to him the whole time, and he refuses to walk out of here with his cuffs still in his pockets.

"Shawn—you got anything else on him?"

He tries to ignore the fact that he just slipped up and called Spencer by his first name, but the man himself does no such thing. There's a glint in his eye when he hears the informality that makes Carlton feel the need to swallow.

"Actually, Lassie, I do," he says with too much of a grin. And then he points to the other end of the living room. "On that shelf over there, you'll find curse jars. To clarify, they are jars. With curses in them. And near those jars are symbols that happen to be  _exact_ matches of symbols that you will find scrawled around and outside of Kramer's apartment."

At this point, Carlton has no reason to doubt that Spencer is right about the symbols. And despite the lack of a clear motive, there's enough circumstantial evidence for a story to form within his head. A story that makes  _sense_ , even with all this magic bullshit involved.

So he abruptly stands up and faces Andre.

"You were trying to curse Kramer! You were  _trying_ , and obviously it wasn't working, but he could tell what was going on. He saw the symbols, he knew someone was trying to hurt him. He got paranoid. When you realized that your curse wasn't working—and, inevitably, that magic isn't real—you went and finished him off face to face, without any of your Voodoo, like a  _normal_  crazy person."

"It's  _Hoodoo_ , and—"

"And you didn't even have to break in, because he just opened the door for you. Why wouldn't he? You're his best friend."

" _Da-yum_ , Lassie!" Spencer jumps in excitement (and pride?), looking back and forth between him and Andre, who looks utterly confused. "That was a solid roast, man. Ice cold."

"That doesn't make any sense, Shawn," Guster says immediately. "How can a  _roast_  be cold? And frankly it was too short to be a roast—"

"Come on, man, are you really gonna argue semantics with me when Lassie just brought it  _down_  on this guy?"

" _Dammit_ , Spencer!" The moment is officially ruined. In hindsight it's really Guster's fault, but Carlton isn't going to waste time correcting himself. "Andre Duval, you're officially the lead suspect for the murder of Bill Kramer. "And  _you_ "—he punctuates by pulling out his handcuffs—"are under arrest."

"What? I didn't  _do_  any of what you said, Detective, those curse jars are aimed at other people, I swear—!"

"You have the right to remain silent, Duval."

The more he thinks about it on the drive back to the station, the clearer it becomes that Spencer has stolen his spotlight far less than usual on this case. So much, in fact, that if he didn't know better, he might consider it a stroke of  _supernaturally_  good luck.

_Ha. Some curse._


	3. Chapter 3

"Why are we here, Shawn?"

"Because of  _this_."

He unlocks his phone screen and hands it to Gus once he parks the car.

"Uh... this is an e-coupon for polo shirts."

"What?" He promptly takes the phone back and brings up his texts. "Okay, here."

It's a text from Juliet, timed around midnight, that reads:

 

_Just let Duval go from holding. Those symbols were meant for protection, he proved it. And we couldn't get a single motive out of him, or any other possible names. It would be nice if you could give us another psychic lead._

 

"Honestly, we should have come here yesterday as soon as we left the station instead of getting AfroThai," Shawn adds. "I  _knew_  it couldn't have really been Andre..."

"You're the one who accused him in the first place!"

Shawn rolls his eyes. "Gus, don't be the dad vicariously living through their son's life in every baseball movie. I merely made some observations, and  _Lassie_  accused him, without any motive. And now that he's out of police custody, we're back to square one."

Which means: investigating Kramer's apartment. Again.

The first time (having heard the address on his police radio and waited until they left to check it out) gave him Lady Rowan's business card, but now they need to go a little deeper. They easily get in again, slipping past the police tape and into the unlocked apartment.

"Bill Kramer started getting paranoid about two weeks ago, right? So all we gotta do...," he says, trailing off as he finds the guy's laptop and opens it, "is _go back_  two weeks."

"I am  _wildly_  disappointed in you for not taking that perfect chance at a Back to the Future reference," Gus says with a serious frown.

"I know, I heard it when I said it—I'm just as disappointed in myself.  _We have to go_ back _, Gus!_ _—_ no, nope, it's too late and it's stale now. Let's just focus and try to figure out this guy's password."

Naturally, the first thing he tries is 'password,' but it doesn't work.

"Try 'abracadabra,'" Gus suggests. "I mean, he's a witch, right?"

As unlikely as that reasoning seems, he tries it. "Nope."

"Alakazam."

"Still no."

"Harry Potter. Just 'harry.' Dumbledore. Rowling. Gandalf. Tolkein—"

"Okay, stop," Shawn finally says, setting the laptop down to get up and look for clues. "There isn't a single Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings book in this entire apartment—just because he's does magic stuff doesn't mean he's a nerd. Lonely and kind of a loser, yeah, but not a nerd."

Kramer owns a lot of books that Shawn's never heard of. A lot of them are the old and intellectual type—he guesses that Kramer was one of those guys who doesn't like to do anything too 'mainstream.' Ugh.

"God, this guy is boring."

"You said that the first time we were here."

"Yeah, and now I'm repeating it, because he's  _really_  fucking boring, Gus."

That gives him an idea. Anyone this boring probably has a series of random letters and numbers for their password, and no one would have a password like that without writing it down somewhere.  _And_  someone as paranoid as Bill Kramer would probably hide it well.

So he tells Gus to help him look through all the drawers and any hiding place he could think of—but as it turns out, it doesn't take that long.

"Damn,  _everyone_  always thinks that taping something under a desk is the best possible hiding place," he laughs when he finds it. "Like no one's ever thought of it before."

It's random letters, just like he suspected, and when they finally get access—

" _Oh_."

"Gross."

"How can  _one_  guy watch so much porn?"

"Whatever. Just close the tabs—we need to check his email."

Luckily that's still logged in, so they don't need to go through more searching. Though they do have to keep scrolling through about two weeks' worth of emails, half of which are stuff about his porn subscriptions, until  _finally_ _—_

"Hey wait—look at this one, Gus."

It's a notification email from what seems to be a witch forum website, alerting Bill Kramer that someone with the username  _vvitch21_  has posted a message directly to his page. It also gives a preview of that message:

 

_I know what you did, and you're going to pay. I'll make sure of it._

 

"Holy shit, Shawn, this is probably it. There—click on the link to the other person's account."

It's pretty much empty, but for a time-stamp marking the date that they joined (which is the same date the threatening message was sent)... and the email address that's attached to the account, which is essentially the same as the username.

Shawn immediately looks to Gus, who seems to be thinking exactly what he's thinking, and he grins his Ed Lover grin.

"Come on, son."

 

* * *

 

 

Carlton is reluctant to be swayed a second time, but after being made a fool of when Duval stops being a suspect over something so simple, he changes his personal ruling back to suicide.

The more he thinks about it, the less evidence there is that it's anything else—there were no signs of a break-in or any kind of struggle, and according to the coroner's report, no sign of drugs in his system either. And it's pretty damn hard to get into a bathtub with someone and slice their neck without them fighting back unless you drug them first.

"He was paranoid that someone was going to kill him, though," Juliet argues when he tells her that he's back to believing this isn't really a case. "How do you explain that?"

"Sometimes paranoia is just paranoia, O'Hara. Maybe he got so paranoid that he finally had enough of being scared, and decided to end it on his own terms."

"Who kills themself  _that_  way, though? It's got to be painful—it would be way quicker and easier to overdose on pills, or shoot or hang yourself."

"It's actually not," he tells her probably a little too quickly. "The pain's like a shaving cut, and you're unconscious within ten seconds. At most you'd probably feel nauseous before you black out."

She doesn't respond, but he can tell that she's somewhat concerned as to why he knows that. He doesn't give her an answer to that, either.

In spite of Duval turning out to be innocent and thus making his belief in the case, as well as his mood, drop, Carlton doesn't think about his suspicious increase of bad luck again until the next morning.

He stubs his toe on the edge of his bedside table immediately after waking up and, in the surge of pain that causes him to swear, the first thing that comes to mind is that goddamn curse.

Except there is no curse, because that is not possible, and people stub their toes all the time anyway! In fact, considering his unusually high pain tolerance, it's hardly even a case of bad luck.

Somehow his shower will only spew out cold water no matter how high he tries to turn up the heat, but he supposes it's not that bad either. A cold shower is useful every once in a while—it stimulates the brain and lowers sex drive. Which, frankly, would be helpful about now.

Still, he'll be calling someone to come fix this later.

He merely considers it strange that that would happen when he's positive he paid his water bill, and refuses to think that it's even possible for "other forces" to be at play. There's a logical explanation for everything.

Even when he pulls out his keys to get into his car and somehow slips and flings them ten feet down the sidewalk, where they roll off the curb and into a storm drain.

It's a psychological thing, he reassures himself as he rushes to go stick his hand down the drain and grab them before a raccoon can come and pick them up. He was being too careful on the off chance that there really was a curse, and that made him slip. That's all. He just needs to get it off his mind.

 

* * *

 

 

That little incident turns out to only be the beginning of his terrible morning.

Carlton arrives at the station over an hour later than he expected to, soaking wet and with a scowl prepared for anyone who gives him a funny look. If only looks could kill.

It seems that he showed up at a bad time, even, as he can see Spencer, along with Guster and Juliet, through the window in Vick's office. He knows this has to be about the Kramer case, which he doesn't want to believe is a case but it's still  _his_ , which means he has to go in. And let them all see him like this.

At least they're all too busy paying attention to Spencer's "vision" to acknowledge him immediately.

"The spirits, they—oh, they're fighting! They're all fighting with the ghost of Bill Kramer—he wants me to see something, he wants to show me—but no, the other spirits... They're telling me... Kramer was  _not_  a good person. He did bad things and he doesn't deserve to have his murder solved— _No!_  Gus, quick, give me your life-force so I can fight them off and let Kramer tell me who his killer was!"

Carlton watches, annoyed but vaguely amused as always, as Guster steps forward and presents his bald head for Spencer to grab. It's one of the dumbest parts of their psychic theatrics, and he can tell even Juliet and the Chief think it's a little too weird to be legitimate, but he supposes it's probably just so Guster can feel included.

"Yes, Gus—it's working!" Spencer announces, using that high-pitched voice that always makes Carlton go stiff (and he has to thank his luck, now for giving him that cold shower). "Yes, Kramer's message is becoming clearer... Come on, man, what are you saying? A witch? We know that already—wait, no. I'm getting it, it's... twenty-one witches—no! Just one. But there's a two and a one and—another two, two  _vees_ , and... I got it."

With that, Spencer lets go of Guster's head and then clings to his arm anyway, catching his breath like he's too exhausted to stand on his own. For a split second, before he says anything else, he glances over to Carlton and makes the slightest frown.

"I know who the killer is."

"And who  _is_  it?" the Chief presses.

"Witch—twenty-one—at hotmail dot com. Except there's two Vs instead of a W. No dashes or underscores or... dots, either."

The Chief then raises an eyebrow, and Juliet frowns.

"You got the killer's email address?"

"Do a reverse search on it," he tells her. "Trust me—and more importantly, trust the spirits."

Juliet nods and immediately heads out of the office to presumably check that out, giving him a concerned once-over as she does.

Before the door even shuts behind her, The Chief speaks again: "Now that that's moving ahead—Carlton, what  _happened_  to you?"

"Well—"

"He's cursed," Guster says.

"I am  _not_  cursed—I just had a bad morning, Chief, they're crazy."

"No,  _he's_  crazy," Spencer insists, pointing to him. "He's under a bad luck curse, and he refuses to believe it no matter what happens to him. Please tell him he's crazy, Chief."

Carlton immediately turns to him with a suspicious look. "Have you been spying on me?"

"I'm psychic, Lassie. And either way you just admitted it—you've been having worse and worse luck this whole time, just like Rowan said, haven't you?"

With that, he's on the spot. Even Chief Vick is staring at him expectantly, and the truth is pretty much transparent.

"...Everyone has bad days," he says smoothly, avoiding eye contact with any of them.

"Not right after getting cursed, they don't."

"I'm sorry—" the Chief cuts in—"can someone explain to me what this is about a  _curse_?"

"I was a little bit rude to a woman who thinks she's a witch, and she said she would put a curse on me. That's it. And of course these idiots believe I've _actually_  been cursed, but any bad things that might have happened to me over the past twenty-four hours are hardly out of the ordinary and can be easily explained."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can tell that both Spencer and Guster have been folding their arms and shaking their heads the whole time he was speaking, and as he looks over they stop and attempt to look innocent.

Surprisingly it's the Chief, rather than either of them, who hits him with this:

"Explain why you're soaking wet, then."

"I—" Carlton's heart drops, and he'd honestly rather eat a live grasshopper than admit what happened. But he has to. "I... fell. Into a puddle."

"Where?" Spencer asks.

"At a gas station. Why?"

"Which gas station? Were there security cameras? I'm asking for a friend."

He smiles and points to Guster, who smacks his hand away. Carlton just scowls.

"Can you also explain why you're late, Detective?"

"Yes, I drove over something and got a flat tire, and it took a while to replace it. It could have happened to anyone."

"Yeah, but when's the last time it happened to you?" Spencer says. And it sounds like he's teasing, but honestly? He has a point.

Which makes Carlton angry at him, however unfair that might be—he doesn't need Spencer making him paranoid like this, putting doubt into his head about a goddamn curse. He does enough of that already with all of his psychic bullshit, and how it's gotten harder and harder for Carlton to force himself to remain rational, and how maybe it's only ever when he's actually wrong, but Spencer's the only person that makes him doubt  _himself_.

"Well... I can't say I believe in curses," the Chief starts to say, at which Carlton is slightly relieved—"but I can't say I absolutely  _don't_  believe in them, either. Obviously this sort of thing has kind of become a gray area for us in the past few years... And if anyone could help you, it's probably Mr. Spencer."

"First of all, Chief, that would require him to admit that I'm a psychic, which I'm not sure Lassie is physically capable of doing. And secondly, the witch actually  _did_  give him a way to break the curse."

Despite the fact that he doesn't even believe in any of it, Carlton still starts forward with the intention to keep Spencer from telling the Chief what it is—

But before any of them can say anything, Juliet bursts back into the office.

"Shawn, I did what you said. And it  _really_  paid off—Carlton, you're gonna want to see."

 

* * *

 

 

How the  _fuck_  Spencer does this, he'll never know. He had to have seen that email somewhere, but how could he have? It was only attached to a single account anywhere on the internet, and that account had only done one thing: made a threatening message to Bill Kramer around the time that he apparently became paranoid.

He supposes it's  _possible_  for Spencer to have merely searched through obscure witch forums until he found the one that Kramer had been a part of, and also searched through each individual profile on those forums until he found one using Kramer's picture... but unlikely.

Then again, a lot of unlikely things have been happening lately.

"I tracked the IP address of that particular message, and  _look_  at the street address that it gave me."

For a moment it's only slightly familiar to him, but then Carlton recognizes it. And it seems that Spencer does, too, because he says it aloud before Carlton can.

"That's the agoraphobe."

" _Supposed_  agoraphobe," Carlton corrects. "If she's our killer, she had to have left her apartment."

"Exactly. She's not our killer."

"Oh, you really think so? Well then, I guess we'll completely disregard this solid evidence  _that you gave us_ , and we'll try sticking our heads directly in the dirt to look for leads instead."

"I'm not saying don't go back and interrogate her—I'm just telling you now, Lassie, she isn't the killer."

"Well, regardless of what you're  _saying_ , we are going back. Right now. Feel free to ride along."

Feeling confident in having the last, passive-aggressive word (at least for the moment), Carlton taps the back of Juliet's chair and motions for her to follow, and then strides away.

"You know, Lassie," Spencer calls as he trails behind, "I was gonna give you my shirt to wear, since it's all dry and clean and I have another one underneath anyway, but now I'm not sure if I feel that generous."

He immediately rolls his eyes—but then it occurs to him that he'd really rather not make an arrest while his suit jacket is still dripping and his button-up is soaked through. It would just be embarrassing, really. And it would take too long to wait for his clothes to dry.

Either way, it's a very clear sign of good luck that the option is there, and he needs that right now.

So he swiftly turns around and stops in his tracks, nearly causing Juliet to bump into him. Spencer gives him a triumphant smirk.

For a moment they just stare at each other, Spencer clearly waiting for him to apologize or to say something nice, and Carlton visually struggling to do either of those things.

Finally, reluctantly, he says aloud: "I'll owe you one."

After a single moment's pause, Spencer is already undoing the buttons on his shirt (which makes Carlton thank his supposed bad luck, once again, for that cold shower) and smiling.

"Good enough for me."

Juliet gives him an odd look as he waits for Spencer to shrug the shirt off, to which he merely says, "It's not like the agoraphobe is going anywhere."

And then he grabs it with a subtle expression of gratitude, immediately running off to the bathroom to change into it. Right before he's out of earshot, though, he thinks he hears Guster say,

."Wait, Shawn—isn't that  _my_  shirt?"

 

* * *

 

 

As though they can hear his thought processes and theories about how this girl might have done it, and how he believes that he sensed her guilt during their first meeting, Spencer and Guster continuously try to convince him that she's innocent during the drive to her apartment.

"Just so you won't go too rough on her, Lassie," Spencer qualifies. "And don't arrest her. Because she didn't do it."

"I can't promise that."

"Lassiter," Guster starts, "no one with anxiety issues that need meds that strong could commit a murder that clean, agoraphobe or otherwise."

"You know, that's a valid point," Juliet adds, turning to look at him.

Carlton frowns and refrains from looking directly at any of them. "And a threatening message that could only have come from the murderer came from her apartment."

Juliet relaxes into her seat and faces forward. "Also valid."

There's plenty of ways that Olivia could have killed her ex-boyfriend, factoring in both her alibi and the possibility that she faked her alibi. And for that reason, Carlton makes a clear point of saying, before they even get into her apartment building,

"Don't say a  _word_  until I'm finished asking my questions, Spencer."

"I can't promise that," he says, clearly imitating him from before.

"Maybe you forgot that I'm a cop and you're not."

"Maybe  _you_  forgot that no more than thirty minutes ago, you said that you owed me one."

Deciding to ignore him in favor of rerouting all his attention to this case, Carlton makes a point of being the one to knock on Olivia Lane's door.

Just like the last time, there's a faint sound of shuffling, and then a squeak, as though she's leaning against the door to look through the peephole, before she opens it. She seems more nervous than the last time.

"Is something wrong?"

"We just need to ask you a few more questions about Bill Kramer's death," Juliet says before Carlton can, which he supposes is better. Get her feeling comfortable, then slam her with questions.

Again, she leads them to her kitchen table, and Spencer and Guster try to take the empty seats just like last time, but Carlton grabs them by the back of their shirts.

" _No_ —you two can go wait over there," he says, jerking them in the direction of the small living room. "I told you—this is  _my_  interrogation."

As he sits down with Juliet, the girl's eyes widen.

"Interrogation? I-I thought you said—"

"You lied to us, Miss Lane." Her eyes widen further, and he folds his hands in satisfaction. "You said that the reason you and Bill Kramer broke up was that  _he_  got tired—of you being agoraphobic, that is. But that's not true, is it? No,  _you_  broke up with him."

She seems to struggle to swallow, and then she sits in shaky silence for several long moments before finally giving a small nod.

"And it wasn't just because you got bored of him—he wasn't a good person, was he?" Spencer is just barely in his peripheral, but Carlton is still positive that he can see him smirking at that.

Meanwhile Olivia looks like she's straining, preparing to break down right in front of him, and he's excited up until she says—

"He raped me. I let him over once, and he stayed the night and had sex with me while I was asleep, and afterwards I refused to talk to him or let him in anymore."

There's a sudden general air in the entire apartment of  _oh, shit._

Carlton was expecting something more along the lines of organized crime, or Bill Kramer having killed someone else. With a glance to his right, he can tell that Spencer and Guster are exchanging looks of shock and discomfort, too.

It seems that the only one who isn't surprised is Juliet, who gives him a brief glare and then looks to Olivia sympathetically.

"And you never reported it?"

She shifts helplessly in her seat and seems to avoid Carlton's eyes.

"How could I when I can't leave my house?"

"You could have called it in," he supplies immediately, ignoring Juliet's eyes boring into the side of his head.

"I—"

"But maybe you just  _chose_  not to because you wanted to take the law into your own hands."

" _Lassiter_ ," Juliet warns with gritted teeth—and he can tell she's serious, but he  _knows_  he's right.

"What? I don't... I don't understand."

She's a good liar, but she's not fooling him.

"Well, maybe you'd like to explain why Bill Kramer received a threatening message, implying revenge, that we traced back to this residence."

For a moment, she just stares incredulously. "What are you talking about?"

"Maybe this will jog your memory," Juliet says, retrieving a printout of the message and sliding it across the table.

Olivia grabs it, and her eyes scan over the short line of text multiple times. Carlton wonders if she's genuinely unsure whether she sent this or not—in which case, a possible undiagnosed DID would be a significant factor in this murder.

"I didn't write this," she finally tells them, setting the paper down. "I have an account on that site, but that's  _not_  me."

"Miss Lane, this is some pretty damning evidence. It would go a lot easier for you if you just confessed right here and now—unless you'd rather do that at the police station?"

"What my partner is  _trying_  to say," Juliet says quickly, "is that we're being particularly considerate to your condition by holding off on arrest. Now—there is no question that this threat came from  _this_  apartment, Olivia. So if you can explain yourself, or give us a single reason to believe that someone else killed Bill Kramer, we're giving you a chance."

"I-I..." Olivia stammers, shaking her head as though she's desperately trying to think of a way out of this. "I don't—I have no _idea_  who could have sent it... I never even told anyone about what Bill did to me—but I  _didn't_  kill him, I swear I'm  _not_  a killer, I couldn't... please, believe me!"

By the end of it she's crying, which would be pretty convincing if Carlton hadn't seen it a million times before. It's a tactic particularly popular with female criminals—they make themselves look helpless and then they kick your gun out of your hand when you're caught off guard. He learned that the hard way.

And considering how unlikely it seems that anyone else would have a motive to kill Kramer, she's all but confessed.

So with a quick, shared look between him and Juliet, they both stand up, the latter already making her way around the table, cuffs in hand.

"What—?"

"Under the circumstances, we have no choice to arrest you for the murder of Bill Kramer," Juliet tells her, the sympathy in her voice at a minimum. But it's there. "It'll be easier for both of us if you stand up."

She complies, but she mainly seems to be in shock as Juliet puts her in handcuffs and as Carlton tells her her rights. Her nod when he asks her if she understands is small, but that's good enough for him.

"What, got nothing to say, Spencer?" he says smugly, but then when he looks up, he finds the man in question with half of a cookie sticking out of his mouth.

Honestly, it's a little concerning that he didn't interrupt at all the entire time. Especially now that they've got her and they're about to take her out the door, and Spencer isn't having some over-exaggerated "vision" as to why Olivia couldn't possibly have done it.

But then Spencer pulls half the cookie out of his mouth, hurriedly chewing the other half so he can speak.

"Don't need to, Lassie. She's about to  _prove_  to you that she couldn't possibly have done it."

For only a split second he's confused, and then as Juliet starts escorting the girl towards the door, she clings, white-knuckled, to the table.

"I really  _don't_  want to have to give you a charge for resisting arrest, Olivia." Juliet pulls her from the table relatively easily, as she's a petite girl who clearly doesn't exercise, but it's still difficult to move her along without hurting her. She's desperate not to leave. "If it's easier, close your eyes."

Surprisingly, she does it. And it's still difficult because she's dragging her feet, but it goes a bit faster. Frankly Carlton thinks that Juliet is being too easy on her, but it would be unethical for him to step in without good reason, as a male officer.

Meanwhile he plays along, hurrying and opening the door before they get there so Olivia won't be able to know the moment that she steps outside, and Spencer and Guster follow to wait with him.

"It's like watching an arrest in slow-motion," the former comments.

Carlton silently agrees, and then eyes the plate of cookies in Guster's hand. There's only a few left.

"Where did you get that?"

"Olivia's coffee table," he answers with what seems to be most of a cookie still in his mouth.

"Have one, Lassie," Spencer says, taking one and handing it to him. "They're fucking amazing—I had like, ten."

Normally he would be annoyed at them stealing food, but this girl is a murderer, so. Why not.

Finally Juliet does get her outside, and Carlton intends to wait several steps before he closes the door so she won't hear it—

But her eyes fly open almost as soon as her feet hit the concrete, and she starts kicking, gasping for air as though she can't breathe and trying to jerk out of Juliet's grip—and Carlton is about to try to help restrain her when she just stops altogether.

 _There's no way_ that _was a panic attack,_  he thinks. He  _knew_  that she had to be faking with the medication somehow.

"Carlton, she's passed out."

"Are you serious?"

"Either that or she's  _really_  good at going boneless," Spencer says.

"And pretending to be asleep," Guster adds when they carefully lift one of her eyelids to check for eye movement.

She's definitely alive, at least. But  _shit_.

"...Maybe she's one of those people who can pass out on command," Carlton suggests weakly.

" _Who_  can do that, Lassie? ...And do you know their contact information, so they can teach me?"

"There isn't anything in the detective's handbook about what happens if someone passes out from a panic attack during arrest," Juliet says, looking to him in concern. "Is there?"

"Well, she's technically in police custody already. So—" he pauses to cough—"we just... take her down to the station and wait for her to wake up...  _fuck_ , my throat is getting itchy—Spencer, was there mint in those cookies?"

He just shrugs, but Guster nods enthusiastically.

"Only a subtle hint, but the super-smeller  _definitely_  caught it—"

"Dude, how do you not know he's allergic?"

"What? You're the one who  _offered_  him one, Shawn!"

"I had no idea there was mint in it! And now Lassie's gonna die and it's your fault—"

"I'm  _fine_ ," he manages to cut in, "it's just—"

"Technically it would be the curse's fault," Guster says.

" _There is no curse!_ "

"Do you not have an epipen, Carlton?"

It was only a tiny bit of mint, not enough to really hurt him—and yet, he's still reluctant for the sake of this supposed curse to tell her.

"...It's in my desk at the station."

 

* * *

 

 

It's his own fault, really. He's the one who decided that carrying their murder suspect down to the interrogation room was of higher priority than getting his epipen, and then Vick grabbed him and Juliet for a word before he could get back to it.

"Let me get this straight... you dragged a severe agoraphobe out of her home—to arrest her for a murder committed across town?"

"For the record—hhm—Chief, I did think it was possible she could... be faking."

She frowns at him for a moment as he furiously scratches at his neck, and then Juliet takes her attention.

"The evidence against her is more than circumstantial, Chief. The only thing that makes it confusing is the fact that she clearly  _does_  have an extreme case of agoraphobia, but Lassiter has a lot of theories prepared. And... if you're angry about her passing out from the panic attack, there's no pre-made guidelines for how we're meant to deal with that—"

"You could have called me and  _asked_ ," she says, in that moment sounding (and looking) very much like a mother. "You could have, say, taken her to the hospital to make sure she was alright."

"She basically just fainted," Juliet counters, "do you really think-?"

"Do I think she  _needed_  a hospital? No. But you know who might argue that when trying to sue the department for police brutality? Her father. Who is also her _lawyer_. And who happens to be one of the most  _successful_  defense lawyers in the state."

"...How do you know that?" Carlton asks, voice somewhat gravelly at this point. "Is he here  _already_?"

"No, I've met him. He mentions his daughter practically everywhere he goes, and I recognized the name." Chief Vick seems to be calming down about the situation now, realizing that her initial anger was a bit unreasonable. "...If you two can somehow convince her not to get Mr. Lane involved, that would be ideal. But if he does, then you  _better_  be able to prove without a single doubt that she's a murderer."

They both nod, and Juliet seems to have realized that his throat is almost too itchy to speak at this point because she speaks for him:

"We promise that we can, Chief."

Finally, she stares straight at him, furrows her brow, and glances between them.

"...Is he having an allergic reaction?"

"Yeah," he rasps out, still scratching.

"For God's sake, Carlton—don't you have an epipen?"

"Yea-ah, it's—"

" _Go_!"

He doesn't need to be told twice.

On his way out of the office, right before the door swings shut, he can hear the Chief telling Juliet: "Make sure Mr. Spencer stays on this case, O'Hara."

 

* * *

 

 

"Well, I just called Olivia's doctor—and according to him it's likely that she hasn't taken her last couple doses of medication since she passed out like that. Which also means that since she only just now took her morning dosage, and because she's in an unfamiliar setting, it could easily be a whole twelve hours before she's fully responsive."

Carlton sighs and glares at Olivia through the two-way mirror, who's been in a perpetual state of freaking out ever since she regained consciousness. For most of that time she's been holding her head in her hands, seemingly to keep herself from seeing where she is, and any time they've tried to talk to her, she hasn't appeared to be coherent.

It's not like he's never dealt with mentally unstable criminals before, but this is just frustrating. Usually the illness is what  _leads_  to the crime somehow, but this time it's the one thing that's keeping them from being convicted.

And at this point, frankly, it's pissing him off.

"If we want her to be physically capable of cooperating, we have to be patient and make her feel comfortable," Juliet tells him sternly, making him look over. "And I know you hate it, Carlton, but that means pampering her a bit."

He does hate it, mainly because the entire  _point_  of an interrogation room is to be an intimidating atmosphere. And also because it doesn't sit right with him to make such an effort to accommodate a (possible) murderer.

But they're also much less likely to get a lawsuit if she's treated particularly well while she's here, so.

"Well, you're obviously the better one at being Good Cop, O'Hara, so you can get right on that."

He promptly starts upstairs and leaves Juliet to do whatever she intends to do, and shortly after returning to his floor, he notices that their resident Fake Psychic has stuck around.

"Spencer, what are you still doing here?"

"I recall the Chief saying that she wanted to make sure I stayed on this case," he says with a teasing smirk.

"Well, there's nothing for you to do here right now." Carlton immediately continues walking to his desk, forcing Spencer to follow as he repeats what Juliet told him.

"You want to grab lunch with me and Gus, then?"

He has to look up to see whether or not Spencer's offer is serious. From the look in his eyes to the way his lips are stretched into a grin, there's no evidence to point significantly either way. Better not risk it.

"Not today, Spencer—this case is throwing me under a lot of paperwork. Mostly... avoiding potential lawsuits," he adds with a grimace.

A moment later he glances up from his desk again to see Spencer still there, pouting, but then he does turn to leave, with one last thing:

"Call me when she starts talking."

The edge of Carlton's mouth quirks upward. He almost sounded like a real detective, there.

"Sure," he calls out. It's not a promise, though.

The next time Carlton looks up he's gone from sight, and only then does it occur to him that, even though his own shirt is perfectly dry now, he's still wearing Spencer's.


	4. Chapter 4

Olivia's doctor's estimate ends up being about right—despite Juliet getting Vick's permission to move her into one of the conference rooms, and also getting McNab to go buy her various snacks with the department's money, it takes forever for her to be able to look them in the eye, let alone say a full sentence.

It's ridiculous, honestly. It feels like a waste of time and resources that they even took her out of her apartment—except, of course, the warrant that Carlton's trying to get so they can search it. If she stayed, she could potentially tamper with evidence.

When she finally is able to answer questions, it's after so many hours of desk work (and then just sitting and  _waiting_ , after he finished) that Carlton is just so  _ready_.

But even then, it's useless. She continues to insist that she's completely innocent, no matter what incentive they give her, or how clearly they lay it out that the evidence is stacked against her and that she's only digging herself a deeper hole by refusing to confess.

Now that it's clear her severe agoraphobia is undoubtedly real, the main working theory is that Olivia hired someone to kill Bill Kramer for her. But she denies that, too.

"Are you trying to protect someone?" Juliet asks for the fourth time. "Because whoever it is, they can't possibly be worth going to prison, Olivia."

"Or even a psych ward," Carlton adds. He's so desperate to be done with this that he doesn't even mind the notion that she might not be guilty anymore. "If you were to give us a name, we could take you home within the hour."

Juliet gives him a slight side-eye for that lie, but doesn't say anything. She's clearly just as tired and desperate to get out of here as he is.

But just as they feel that this is going absolutely nowhere, Olivia seems to have gotten tired of it as well.

"I want to call my dad," she says instead of repeating the same answer she's kept giving them. There's a surprising amount of confidence in her voice. "He's a lawyer."

At that, Carlton and Juliet exchange looks, and they both know they're thinking the same thing:  _Shit._

"Okay, we've been really considerate so far," Juliet tries in her kindest voice, "and if you could just wait a little before—"

"No. I know how these things work—I watch Law and Order. You  _have_  to let me call him."

She looks like she might be on the verge of freaking out again, so they relent. Carlton grabs her cellphone from evidence, finds her dad's contact, places the call on speaker, and then sets it on the table with a vague sense of dread.

Mr. Lane picks up after only two rings.

"Hey, princess. What's up?"

"Dad, I-I'm... I—I'm at the police station, I—"

"You're out of your apartment?"

"They th-think I—that I k-killed someone, and I didn't—"

"It'll be okay, Olivia. I'm in another state right now, but I'll be there in the morning."

Once the call ends, and he and Juliet have no choice but to leave the room, Carlton prays that the warrant goes through as soon as possible.

 

* * *

 

 

At roughly six in the morning, Shawn's ringtone infiltrates his dream. He's on the pier, back at the Yang case, and he tries to answer his phone—but the sound isn't coming from his, it's coming from the one taped under the bench. And when he tries to answer it, it's Lassiter.

Somehow he doesn't question why Lassiter would be calling when he's looking right at the man, and he answers it.

"Lassie?"

"Don't fuck this up, Spencer."

Then he hears the ringtone again, and he's pulled back into the real world, where his actual phone is actually ringing.

That makes a lot more sense, he thinks, relieved, before putting an end to Wreckx-n-Effect's  _Rump Shaker_.

It's Jules.

"Hey, Shawn—I'm guessing you haven't had any new visions?"

"Sorry, I'm at a dead end just like you guys. Also, I've been asleep and dreaming of a thousand kittens all working together to be one giant cat."

It's not a complete lie; there definitely  _was_  a part of his dream like that.

"...Okay. Well. We finally got that warrant to search Olivia's apartment, and Lassiter and I are kind of hung up at the moment, so I want you and Gus to go see if you can get any psychic vibes from anything. There's people already there—they'll know to let you in."

"I dunno, Jules," he yawns. "Are you sure Lassie would be okay with us being there unsupervised?"

"Of course he wouldn't."

That perks him up a bit. "Great, we'll be there in ten."

It's more like twenty. Maybe even closer to thirty—they're both fairly tired and in need of donuts to energize them, as well as coffee to make Gus capable of driving at all. After hardly five hours of sleep, the main thing motivating him to do this is knowing he'll get paid at the end of the case.

They'd actually tried to get back into Olivia's apartment yesterday after Lassiter rejected his lunch offer (and, of course, after lunch), but apparently Lassiter had locked the door before they left. And of  _course_  Olivia has to have some fancy kind of lock system that even Gus can't pick.

But now it's presumably unlocked, with Buzz McNab standing guard outside the door. Which means it might as well be wide open.

Once inside, Shawn notices some guys in the kitchen with what looks like some government-issued computer, along with Olivia's laptop. There's hardly anyone actually physically searching the rest of the apartment—and he knows why. Pretty much any proof that Olivia did do it would be on her computer, and that's the only thing they're trying to find.

But he's absolutely sure that she  _didn't_  do it, which is why he needs access to her bedroom.

And unlike Bill, she actually does seem to be a fan of Harry Potter. She has merch everywhere—along with serious witch stuff, like crystals and the fancy kind of bottles he remembers seeing at Lady Rowan's, and even a mortar and pestle.

"This is actually pretty fucking cool," he mutters, picking up one of the jars from Olivia's desk. It looks like some kind of oil inside.

"I  _know_ —come look at her closet, she has pretty much every piece of Gryffindor merch available. Girl's got some serious House pride..."

Shawn turns around to see Gus smirking, and he makes a point of putting the jar down loudly.

"Dude, you  _cannot_  date her."

"But if she's innocent like you said, then—"

"Gus, don't be Bill Kramer. Yeah, I went there—you're being creepy. Now help me search for... I dunno, a diary, or a journal or something."

Gus seems slightly hurt, but he promptly sticks his hand under Olivia's mattress to search, and comes out with nothing.

"Huh, weird. Girls always keep their diaries there."

"Not when they reach their twenties, they don't."

After a bit of rifling through her drawers, Shawn does find a small schedule book, and he waves Gus over.

"Why would someone who never leaves the house need a schedule?"

"Says the guy who marks every new episode date of Supernatural on his calendar," Shawn retorts almost mindlessly as he flips through the pages, finding today's date and then searching backwards.

"It gives me something to look forward to, Shawn—"

"Hey, wait." Once he gets it, he holds the book a bit too close to Gus's face. "Olivia had a therapist come visit her twice a week, and her name is Maya Patil."

That's enough for them to know where to go next—that is, where Shawn's going to get the information that'll be in his next big vision. Well, maybe not that big. He hopes so, at least.

On their way out, Gus nudges him and gestures toward the kitchen.

"Hey, from this angle, doesn't Dobson kinda look like Val Kilmer?"

Shawn glances over, tilts his head, and shrugs. "Eh, I don't see it."

 

* * *

 

 

If it weren't for the fact that it's relatively early in the morning, Carlton would be entirely unsurprised to see that Spencer and Guster got to Patil's office before he and Juliet did.

"Let me guess," he says as he comes up behind them, "the  _spirits_  told you to come here?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Lassie," Spencer starts as he twists around to face him, "leftover bits of Olivia's energy from her apartment told me to come here— _woah_."

Once he gets a chance to really look at him, Spencer stops. Presumably from Carlton's appearance, but rather than acknowledging it or trying to defend himself, his attention is redirected to Juliet:

"You told them to go to her apartment? They'll ruin this!"

"Vick said she wanted them on the case," she reminds him with an exasperated look. "And I'm sure that means whether they agree with your theory or not." Then she looks to Spencer and Guster. "I'm assuming you don't, do you?"

"Well, I dunno, I guess I'm a little more open to it now," Spencer shrugs. "If Olivia  _did_  do it, she certainly didn't leave her apartment to do so."

That makes Carlton raise an eyebrow in pleasant surprise. "So what are you saying?"

"Well, if it's her, she must have cursed him, obviously. A witch who wants revenge doesn't bother with physical weapons."

As quick as it rose, his expression drops. And like most of the rest of the time, he genuinely can't tell if Spencer is serious or just messing with him—but at least Juliet seems skeptical. Though she gives him a look indicating that she's reluctant to rule it out entirely.

Irritable, and feeling vaguely betrayed, Carlton wastes no more time in standing around and promptly pushes his way past the glass doors to the building. Everyone else seems to take the cue and follows.

Within seconds of flashing the receptionist his badge, they're given directions to Patil's office. And in the time it takes to walk there, Spencer tells him what he presumably meant to earlier:

"You look terrible, Lassie."

Carlton side-eyes him and scowls. "You don't look so hot yourself, Spencer."

"I only got like, five hours of sleep—did you get  _any_?"

"What do  _you_  think?"

"...Did any more unlucky stuff happen?"

He refuses to answer that. Which should be enough of an answer.

Patil is in the middle of a therapy session, but of course with this being a police matter, that session comes to an end. She seems annoyed when the four of them step in and her client is forced to leave—and even moreso when Juliet tells her that they're here to ask about Olivia Lane.

"You must know I can't disclose any information from our sessions," Patil says. "I'm sure you've heard of doctor-patient confidentiality, Detective?"

"But you're not a doctor," Carlton points out. "You don't diagnose anything—you just talk to her and make recommendations to her actual doctor, correct?"

She tightens her lips, as well as her posture. "It still applies."

Juliet jumps in quickly, as though to ease up the tension: "We just need to know if you believe Olivia is capable of hurting anyone. More specifically, killing anyone."

Patil seems taken aback at that indirect accusation, and adjusts her glasses before answering. Probably a nervous tick.

"Well... she has had violent outbursts in the past, but nothing serious came out of them. And I suppose her condition makes her susceptible to psychosis, but that would be in a  _drastic_  case—she'd have to stop taking her medication for a long time."

"Hm. And what about a calculated murder?" Carlton asks, leaning forward.

"...What do you mean?"

"Would it  _ever_  be possible for her to be stable long enough to leave her apartment for at least half an hour, go kill someone, and come back?"

"I..." She adjusts her glasses again. "Well, she'd have to be in a particularly good place, and to have not skipped her medication at all for months, but I suppose it's not  _impossible_. Though I have no idea how she would get to wherever she needed to go, considering she can't drive, and she has little to no experience with public transportation. I doubt she would be perfectly fine being around people when she hasn't done so in  _years_."

Patil seems angry with him at that point, and also vaguely confused.

"I have a question!" Spencer says unexpectedly with a raise of his hand. They all look to him. "Do you have a bathroom connected to this office?"

"Um." She pauses, clearly thrown off. "No, but there's one down the hall."

Carlton returns his attention to the therapist as Spencer leaves, ready to ask another question—but then on his way out, he trips on a stack of folders, sending them scattering across the floor.

"Jesus, Spencer, be careful!"

"Oh jeez—I'm so sorry," he says as Patil turns around, "Lassie there's been extremely clumsy the past few days and I must have caught it by association. It's one of the downsides of being a psychic."

He wants to be angry, but he swears that, as Spencer gathers up all the folders to put them back into a semi-neat pile, he sees him slide one of them up into his shirt.

_Oh._

It might be illegal, but it also might be exactly what they need.

"What's all this about?" Patil asks once Spencer is out of the room.

It occurs to him, in that moment, that Patil could very well be a suspect. So he hesitates to answer—but then Juliet does it for him.

"The murder of Bill Kramer. What do you know about him?"

She looks a bit ruffled, now. "Uh... I know that he and Olivia dated, maybe? If that's the same Bill she mentioned."

Carlton leans forward again. "So you were  _not_  aware that Bill also sexually assaulted Miss Lane."

" _Oh._  No, she never mentioned anything like that to me—"

"Well, that's  _odd_. Why wouldn't she, when you're the person who's supposed to help her with her problems?"

"Are you accusing me of something?"

"That depends—did you  _do_  something?"

Before Patil can express how offended she probably is, Spencer returns from the "bathroom," and his fingers are immediately on his temple.

"While peeing, I had a very  _strong_  sense—that this woman is telling the truth about everything. And that this has been another dead end in the investigation."

Not nearly reluctant as he'd be if he didn't know that Spencer got that information from an actual file, Carlton stands up to leave. He also decides not to mention to anybody, not even to Spencer, that he noticed him take it. Better not to start needless drama in the middle of a case.

Or, that's what he tells himself.

 

* * *

 

 

All four of them have hardly slept, if at all, so they unanimously agree to go to the coffeehouse across the street before going back to the station. It's not like they're in a hurry to chase other leads.

Despite all the 48 and 72-hour days he's pulled before, Carlton is fucking exhausted. It comes in waves, though—for a few minutes he's perfectly fine, and then out of nowhere he can barely keep his eyes open.

Which is why, as he's moving to sit down to wait desperately for his caffeine fix, it's easy to rationalize someone bumping into him and spilling their iced coffee on his pants. Except of course  _he's_  the one who bumped into them. Because he's tired. That's the sole reason.

"It's my fault," he insists aloud, partially to himself, as the other man grabs napkins to help him wipe it off.

"Carlton, you just apologized to a stranger," Juliet says a moment later, frowning in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I am. I just—I'll go wait in the car."

She looks reluctant to let him go (possibly afraid that he'll get hit by a car if he's walking alone? oops, fuck, now  _that's_  on his mind—) but ultimately does.

 _I just need some damn coffee,_  he thinks, pushing his way outside and onto the sidewalk.  _And to solve this case as soon as possible, so I can sleep._

There's a German Shepherd on a leash outside the coffeehouse, and Carlton cheers up just slightly when he walks past. The moment he smiles at it, though, there's teeth scraping against his arm faster than he can think.

He doesn't even have room to think about the curse in the moment—he just knows there's a vicious dog relentlessly holding onto his arm no matter how hard he tries to shake it off and pull away, and his hand is instinctively going to his gun—

And then the guy who spilled coffee on him (and who's also the owner, it seems) runs out to pull it off of him just in time, effectively ripping half of his sleeve off with it.

"Oh my God, I'm  _so_  sorry—he literally  _never_ acts like this, I have no idea what got into him-"

"Lassie!"

Spencer and Juliet come running out behind the dog-owner, pushing past him as well to get a closer look at his arm. It's not bleeding much, but the way the shirt ripped makes it look a lot more brutal.

"Are you okay?" Juliet asks a second time—much more urgent, now.

"'M fine," he mutters, in a bit of shock. It's hard to believe that this really just happened—especially now that the dog and its owner are gone. Where did they go? Were they ever even here? "...Sorry about your shirt, Spencer."

"What?—oh. Eh, it's Gus's shirt anyway," he says dismissively. "Speaking of which—" He promptly sticks his head back inside the coffeehouse, yelling at Guster to hurry up and get their coffee.

 

* * *

 

 

Juliet takes the wheel, which is fair. At least Spencer is in a separate car, so he doesn't have to hear any rambling about the "curse."

...Except Carlton's brain is playing out everything Spencer  _would_  be saying if he were riding with them, so he might as fucking well be.

Once at the station, he lets Juliet put antiseptic on his arm for the dog bite while he relays all the pertinent information regarding Olivia's father-slash-lawyer to Spencer and Guster.

"Oliver Lane? I've heard of him," the latter comments, somewhat muffled by the donut stuffed into his mouth. "He's a genius. If Olivia did do it, he'll find a hole in the story somehow. And if she  _didn't_... shit, he's gonna tear the SBPD to shreds."

"Yeah, Vick told us," Carlton grumbles.

Spencer gives Guster an odd look (probably wondering how he knows all that about Lane), and then leans back, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Too bad there's nothing in the California penal code about putting a curse on someone... Hey, I wonder if old Oli's a witch, too."

"Would that make a difference?" Juliet asks.

"...Probably not. The guy's clearly one of those fiercely overprotective dads—he could have watched Olivia commit the murder with his own two eyes and he'd still defend her. Not that she did it, but. Y'know."

 _Not that witchcraft is real, either, but_ —

"Wait." Carlton abruptly slams the desk with his non-injured arm as he comes to a realization, then looks between Spencer and Juliet. "If Lane does practice witchcraft like his daughter, then in the potential lawsuit, we could use that fact to discredit him!"

"We use a psychic, though," Juliet says.

"I've proved my abilities to a judge before," Spencer chimes in. "You can't exactly demonstrate magic in a court."

"And unlike psychic abilities," Guster adds, "witchcraft is commonly associated with the Devil. If he were to admit to it in front of a jury, they'd all probably think he was either evil or crazy."

As great of an idea they all agree it is, it proves to be another dud. In the next hour, they fail to get any notion that Lane believes in magic let alone practices it—he's even skeptical that Spencer is a psychic, and won't let him talk to Olivia. Any other time Carlton would be thrilled that someone else doubts Spencer's psychicness, but this only makes things harder for them.

And with no new evidence to question Olivia about (and no hope that she'll give different answers to the same questions), they're all pretty much just stuck waiting for something to turn up. All but Spencer, who actually seems to be attempting to induce a vision.

God, he needs more coffee.

Furiously rubbing at his face, Carlton stands up and crosses the station to where a mostly empty coffee pot is sitting, and pours the last of it into his personal mug. It's just enough to fill it, which, frankly, he considers lucky.

And then, well, he doesn't know  _how_  it happens. But as he's taking a test sip, the handle slips, and hot coffee goes spilling down his chin, and neck, and chest.

Carlton yells not only from the physical pain, but pure  _exhaustion_  as well. But mostly the pain.

 

* * *

 

 

Shawn's head jerks up when he hears Lassiter curse—and it seems that everyone else's does, too. Pretty much the whole station is staring at him as he slams his coffee mug down and storms off, literally  _steaming_ a bit, to the bathroom.

_Oh, shit._

He glances around for a second to see whether anyone is following, and no one is. So he takes it upon himself.

Several seconds later he finds Lassiter in between the sinks and the paper towel dispenser, desperately trying to wipe the coffee off and keep a stain from setting without having to actually take off his shirt.

Carlton glances up as soon as he hears footsteps, already guessing who it is—and he's right.

"Go away, Spencer," he growls.

Naturally, he doesn't, and instead gets closer. In fact, Shawn makes a point of leaning against the sink on the other side of him, where the mirrors are and where Lassiter will have no choice but to acknowledge him.

"Some  _luck_ , huh?"

Carlton winces as though he's been burned a second time, and then just scowls as he grabs more paper towels.

"Don't you think I'm having it bad enough?"

"Don't you think that's why I'm in here?"

When Lassiter refuses to even glance at him in the mirror, Shawn grabs him by the shoulder and turns him around.

" _Spencer_ , I don't need—"

"Listen, Lassie, I'm  _with you_  on this," he nearly yells, to make sure Lassiter knows he's serious. "I don't really believe Kramer was killed by a curse, and I never did, I was just screwing with you. And hell, I didn't think Rowan's curse was really gonna work, but  _shit_ , Lassie, at the rate your luck is going—"

Shawn pauses out of a sheer desire not to think about how that sentence would end, and Carlton can only stand there with a tight frown.

He doesn't think he's ever seen Spencer like this.

"I'm worried, okay? You need to figure this out, man. Just... kiss whoever you need to kiss and I'm sure this'll be fixed."

It was funny at first, really, but in the past couple days he's been watching so much shit happen to Lassiter that not only does he feel bad, but he's fucking  _scared_. And it's not funny at all anymore.

"There's nothing to fix, Spencer," Carlton tells him firmly—yet not as harshly as before. He clearly means well. "I can take care of myself."

That makes Shawn look absolutely fed-up.

"Come  _on_ , Lassie, you gotta admit—"

"No, I don't. I can't. I'm not  _like_  you, Spencer—you know what, maybe I wish I was. I can't imagine how much easier it would be if I could just blame all my problems on a curse, or even believe in them... But like I said, I  _can't_."

And then Carlton simply turns back to face the mirror again, hoping Shawn will take that as a cue to leave him alone. He doesn't.

"Okay, whatever—be a skeptic, I don't care." He sounds as bitter as Carlton feels. "But just on the off chance that it might be a real curse, can you at least  _try_  to fix it? I mean, there has to be  _someone_  who—"

"There isn't."

There's a pause between them where Shawn frowns, unsure of how he should feel that Lassiter was so quick to say that—and Carlton looks at Shawn's reflection in the mirror, afraid that he knows exactly  _why_  he was so quick to say that.

And then Shawn, evidently giving up on him for now, gives him one final look of bitter concern and walks out of the bathroom.

As determined as he is to hold onto his skepticism, Carlton can't help but truly fear, in the moments that he hears him leave, that Spencer may be right.

 

* * *

 

 

A couple hours after Spencer leaves, word comes back from Dobson that there's no doubt the threatening message came from Olivia's personal computer. Not only that, but after accessing the records of her online bank accounts, over $20,000 has recently been withdrawn from the funds that her father set up for her.

It's enough to throw poor Olivia into another freakout when she hears it, and subsequently make Mr. Lane extremely angry that they had to tell him the news in front of her. Regardless, it's looking good for the SBPD.

Knowing how relieved she'll be, Carlton is particularly excited to be the one to give the news to Chief Vick.

"This case is pretty much in the bag at this point," he tells her with a proud grin. "All that's left is making the official charges and figuring out Lane's holding situation."

"Great. Now I can send you home in good conscience."

His grin fades into confusion. "What?"

"From what Detective O'Hara has told me, I feel that it's for your own good that I put you on a brief paid leave, starting now. And since—"

"Hold on," he interrupts, though slightly intimidated by the way the Chief raises an eyebrow at him. "Are you telling me you  _actually_  believe that I'm cursed?"

Rather than answering immediately, the Chief stands up from her desk, puts her hand on Carlton's back, and leads him out of her office.

"Curse or not, you're having a streak of bad luck that's been hurting both you and the case. And until it's over—or until you can take care of it, I want you to stay home, Lassiter."

Only once she's done does he realize that he's been led to the front doors of the station. And that Juliet's waiting there.

"I'm also having O'Hara drive you," Vick adds. "For your own safety."

Then she walks back to her office, leaving him with his partner, who's smiling sheepishly.

"...Sorry."

"Let's just go," he grumbles. Because apparently he has no choice.

He does agree, though, that it's probably on the safer side for him to stay in the passenger's seat.

For a great deal of the ride home, there's nothing but silence between them. Carlton stares out the window, somehow both exhausted and wired, and Juliet seems to respect that he doesn't feel like making conversation.

Until, eventually, she says, "I can handle Lane on my own, if you're worried about that."

"I know you can," he says, still watching out the window.

"And you'll be able to get some sleep."

At that, he merely makes a soft noise of agreement.

"...Okay, I know you're probably still refusing to believe that Rowan's curse worked, which is frankly ridiculous, but I was thinking, and—"

"O'Hara,  _please_."

"I'm just  _saying_ , Carlton, I was thinking. And Rowan said true love's kiss, but she didn't actually specify that it had to be romantic love, or that the kiss had to be on the lips or anything, so."

Carlton finally turns his head, and Juliet glances back at him.

"So...?"

" _So_... well. Like I said, you still don't believe in the curse, but it can't hurt to try, can it? Just in case?"

"What, you want me to kiss you?"

"Just on the cheek or something!" she insists, glancing at him again. "Nothing weird. I mean... you do love me as a friend, right?"

Does he? He generally doesn't think of it that way. Platonic  _attachment_ , yes, but love? Love has always seemed like a term reserved for romance and family.

Then again, Juliet is the only woman he's ever enjoyed the platonic company of, so she's clearly special. And of course they're more than just  _friends_ —they're partners, even better partners than he was with Detective Barry, and they'd actually been in a relationship.

So rather than saying aloud that he does, indeed, love her, Carlton takes Juliet's suggestion to heart and quickly leans over to kiss her while she's driving. Because it can't hurt to try, really. And what's a cheek kiss between friends? It's not weird.

It feels awkward in the moment after, though. As he leans back in his seat he doesn't know what to do, so he just looks out the window again.

Juliet coughs. "Do you feel different? ...Luckier?"

"Uh... I don't think so?"

"I guess we'll have to wait to find out if it worked."

Whether he's actually been cursed or not, Carlton sincerely hopes that it did.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly Shawn's POV.

"Damn, cases usually don't get to you like this."

Jarred from his train of thought by Gus's remark, Shawn looks up from his lunch.

"What?"

"You've been moody since we left the station, man. And you didn't even flirt with the waitress."

Truthfully, he didn't expect Gus to notice. And he didn't want him to, either, because as close as they are, he doesn't want to have to explain that he's in a  _mood_  over Lassiter.

But hey, he thinks it's the case, and that's not completely wrong, so Shawn plays off of it.

"It's just not adding up, Gus. Olivia couldn't possibly have done it, but she's the only one in the picture. It's like... someone else was cropped out. Expertly."

"What makes you so sure she didn't hire someone or something?"

If he wasn't already in a mood, that probably wouldn't piss him off as much as it does.

"Because I just  _know_ , okay?" In that moment, several people glance over to their table, so Shawn consciously tries to keep his voice down when he continues. "You saw her room—she's wrapped up in her shows and books and her witch stuff. Even if she wanted to, she'd have no  _idea_  how to hire an assassin. Come on—you know I can read guilt. That's my  _thing_. And that girl doesn't have a malicious bone in her body."

Gus gives him an odd look, and Shawn has to wonder if his friend is at all scared of him in this moment, but then he seems to relent.

"She  _is_  a Gryffindor," he says. "Kind of makes her hard not to trust."

 _Who else, though?_  he asks himself for the umpeenth time.  _Who else_ is _there?_

Taking a sip of his smoothie for a quick energy boost, Shawn forces himself to think. He needs to  _remember_ —no pictures in Bill's apartment, none in Olivia's either, no matter how many times he scans over his memories of them. He searches them for anything at all that could link him to another suspect, or anything that might have been overlooked with Andre,  _anything_  from anywhere he's been in the past couple days—

"Shawn?"

"I got it, Gus," he mutters, somewhat trance-like.

"...You alright, dude?"

And then he snaps his head up to face Gus again. "The file, Gus! That file I got from Patil's office—I barely skimmed it, I only needed to know anything to do with Kramer, but I remember now. Pretty much the only other name mentioned in Olivia's file was  _Val_."

"Val Kilmer?"

"I wish, but no. Don't you remember Olivia mentioning her friend Val—the one who picks up all her groceries?"

"Uh—"

"Nevermind, dumb question. But the point is that I remembered, and it's obvious now that Val is like, her best friend. And yet she hasn't mentioned her again in this whole case... Val is the link to this, Gus, I know it."

"What, you think this Val might have killed Kramer?"

"Not sure, but if anyone can give us proof Olivia didn't do it, it's probably her."

"Okay so... how do we find her? We don't even have a last name. I mean, we could just tell Lassie—"

"Nonsense," Shawn says, making a point of hurrying to finish his smoothie. "We'll just go back to Olivia's apartment."

There's bound to be contact information for Val somewhere they didn't look the last two times they were there—but unfortunately, it seems they'll never have proof of that. Because as soon as Gus parks the Blueberry, he also spots a group of policemen walking down the stairs from the apartment building.

They approach regardless, and Buzz spots them immediately and smiles.

"Oh, wow, you guys have amazing timing," he says enthusiastically. "The tech guys just confirmed it."

Shawn pauses, trying to think of a way to seem like he already knows what Buzz is talking about and also get information in the process. It's a good thing that the guy is more puppy than he is cop.

"...They did?"

"Yeah, the threat definitely came from that girl's computer. Oh—and you know what else? Apparently a  _lot_  of money was withdrawn from the account her dad has set up for her about a month ago. Like... the kind of money it takes to hire a contract killer."

_...Shit._

In spite of how much he wants to throw something, Shawn maintains a positive exterior.

"Thanks, Buzz."

"Don't mention it," he says with a grin. "Seriously, don't mention it. I don't think I'm actually supposed to know any of that... I just overheard it."

"Of course, man," he promises, patting Buzz on the chest.

And then the moment the niceties are over, Shawn turns back around, grabs Gus by the arm, and starts back towards the car with a swear under his breath.

"I still agree with you that Olivia didn't do it," Gus mutters, "but it's getting pretty hard to believe it, Shawn."

"Which is why I have to talk to her as soon as possible."

 

* * *

 

 

Positive that Lassiter (and probably Juliet, too) will be fully convinced by now that Olivia is the murderer, Shawn makes no attempt to find him or tell him about his theory. He and Gus don't even catch a glimpse of them on their way to the conference room, which is for the better.

Luckily he's not in the conference room, either—it's just Olivia, her dad, and the guard standing outside.

"I already told you I don't believe in psychics, Mr. Spencer. And even if I did, you wouldn't get a confession out of my daughter—"

"I know that," Shawn tells him, still catching his breath from running up here. "Because she didn't do it. You know what else I know?" He puts a finger to his head, gives Mr. Lane a once-over, and a couple things connect in his mind. "You're ready to take the insanity defense, because you know things aren't looking good. Maybe you could convince a judge to send her to a cushy hospital, but  _I_  could send her home without any charges. I just need to ask her one question. Or maybe two, depending."

Lane gives him a brief, intense look, and then he sighs and opens the door to let them in.

"Oh, uh—I need to ask her alone. It's a psychic thing."

"... _Fin_ e," he says, reluctantly stepping out of the room.

He also seems to take it to mean that Gus can't be in there either, and blocks him as he closes the door. Shawn can't mind too much.

As he takes a seat across from Olivia, he easily notices how much she's been crying. Considering how shaken she looks, he can't even be sure that she can hear him until he asks.

"...Olivia?"

"I didn't—"

"I know. But the police don't, so I need to prove it."

"How?"

"I need you to tell me about your friend, Val. You two are like, the best of friends, right?"

She seems surprised that he knows that, but then remembers, once again, that he's psychic. Either that or she's remembering that she mentioned Val before, but Shawn would bet on the former.

"Um... yeah. Since elementary school. We're like  _that_ ," she says with a slight smile, crossing her fingers to show him. "Why?"

"How often does she stay over at your place?" he presses. "Enough, say, that it's like a second home—she has keys to your apartment, raids your fridge, uses your laptop, that kind of thing?"

Olivia blinks rapidly for a moment, seemingly trying to gather her thoughts, and—just as Shawn intended—without realizing quite what he's asking.

"I—well, yeah. Exactly. She's the only person I'm comfortable being around so much. If she didn't have a boyfriend she'd probably live with me."

"Okay, perfect. Then she can help me—I just need her number, or address or something so I can talk to her."

"Her contact info's in my phone," she offers. "Wherever that is. I'm kind of... really bad at remembering stuff like that on my own, so."

"I got you," Shawn says with a nod, standing up immediately. "You'll be out of here today, I promise."

It's easy enough to sneak into the evidence room and grab Olivia's phone—and fuck, he can't believe the key to this case was right here the whole time, and no one even  _looked_. Granted they wouldn't have known what to look for, but still.

She has hardly any contacts, so he finds Val's within seconds. And before he reads her actual information, he sees her picture, which is the real kicker.

"Oh,  _wow_ ," Gus comments when Shawn taps on the picture to enlarge it. "If she wasn't probably a killer—"

" _Gus_ ," he says to stop him, but not because he's annoyed. "Do you not recognize her at all?"

"Uh... should I?"

"Shit, man, Val's address isn't even in here but I know  _exactly_  where she is. You need to pay more attention."

Feeling the usual hype that he gets at the height of a case, Shawn doesn't even bother to explain as he stuffs the phone back into its evidence bag and starts heading directly out of the station.

He'll explain in the car, though.

 

* * *

 

 

They make a quick stop at Shawn's laundromat-turned-apartment so he can pick something up—and when he gets back in the car, Gus is squirming in his seat.

"Tell me again why we're  _not_  getting Lassie or Juliet in on this?"

"Three things," Shawn tells him as he straps himself in, holding up his fingers to count them off. "One: I can absolutely  _promise_  you there's no danger here. Two: As fun as it would be to prove them wrong to their faces, it would be more impressive if we brought her in by ourselves. And three—" He holds up the pair of handcuffs that he just ran in to get. "I've had these for almost four years and now I  _finally_  get to use them for their intended purpose."

As expected, Gus is fixated for a little too long as to why and how he has police-issued handcuffs (and weirdly enough, he doesn't question what  _unintended_  purpose Shawn's been using them for).

"...Did you steal these?"

"Surprisingly, no."

"Well then how—"

"It's complicated. Don't worry about it."

Really, it would be easy to just tell him about that night in Tom Blair's Pub—how Lassiter is a secret-spiller drunk, and how after only a few months Shawn had inadvertently knocked him down in the self-worth department, and how his handcuffs hadn't been stolen, but rather given away while wasted. And it sure would give Gus an insight to why Shawn was so insistent on solving that case for free and giving Lassiter the credit.

But it's only fair that the details of that night stay between him and Lassiter's subconscious mind. That, and it's fun to see his friend think of all the possible convoluted ways he might have gotten the handcuffs.

Meanwhile Gus is still visibly nervous right up until the point that they knock on the door, and Andre Duval opens it.

"You guys again?" he says in exasperation, frowning between them. "Look, I already proved that I didn't—"

"Oh, we know," Gus says.

"We're not here for you—we wanna talk to your girlfriend," Shawn tells him.

"Valerie? Um... sure, she's right here."

Ironically looking like he wants nothing more than for them to leave, Andre lets them in. Shawn immediately steps towards the shelves, where there's a framed picture of the couple who lives here.

"See, Gus?" he whispers loudly. "I recognized her from  _this_."

The woman in question is also sitting on the couch, and she stands up abruptly. For a split second Shawn worries that she has a weapon, but she's empty-handed.

"Andre? Who are these guys?"

"That's the psychic I told you about—the one that showed up with the cops. And, uh... Strange Magic?"

" _M'Agic_ ," Gus corrects. Shawn swears he actually sounds offended.

"I thought you already decided that Andre didn't do it," Valerie says, turning to them. Her voice sounds genuine, but Shawn sees the panic in her eyes.

And then he steps towards her, slowly bringing two fingers to his head.

"You know, Val, you've been avoiding us this whole case, and I don't even think it was on purpose."

Her pupils shrink rapidly, and there's a catch in her breath. And when she doesn't respond, Andre jumps in.

"Babe? What are they talking about?"

"You weren't on Rowan's list of regular customers because you never actually buy anything yourself—you just go there to pick up Olivia's stuff," Shawn continues. "Hell, you're not even into witch stuff, are you? You just hang around people who are."

"So what?" she says defensively, glancing nervously to her boyfriend.

Shawn shrugs. "Eh, it's just interesting. But what's even more interesting is how you managed to stay in the background without even trying. You didn't know Bill Kramer personally—and yes, you knew that would keep you from being a suspect, but I'm  _sure_  you didn't pin it on Olivia on purpose, did you? No, you just happened to be hanging out with her when you thought up your revenge plan, and it backfired.

"Now, here's the  _really_  interesting part: Olivia didn't actually tell you about what Bill did, did she? She was telling the truth about that. She didn't want it to become a big deal, or for the police to get involved—she probably even thought you might do something like this."

And  _that_  is the part that breaks her.

"Olivia doesn't have a malicious bone in her  _body_!" Valerie nearly screams, sounding resentful of the fact. Tears are starting to well up in her eyes. "I had to find out by overhearing a voicemail Bill left, trying to tell Andre about it. And then I waited  _weeks_  to see if Olivia would tell me—but she wouldn't. I could tell she was messed up, and I kept asking what happened, and... you don't understand. She tells me  _everything_. Because of what that piece of shit did, I'm almost sure she blamed  _herself_ —someone had to give her justice."

"And that someone had to be be you?" Gus cuts in. "You could have reported it once you found out."

"Because rapists  _always_  get what they deserve in the justice system, right?" she snaps, shutting him up real quick. "The police would have shrugged it off. ' _They were dating. She let him in her bed. She must have wanted it._ ' Don't you understand? I had to. Bill Kramer deserved it—"

"Holy _shit_ , Valerie," Andre says, horrified as he backs away from her. Looks like he didn't know his girlfriend well enough.

She just stares at him, apparently devastated that Andre doesn't approve of murder, and Shawn takes the moment to finish off his fake vision:

"You planned it all perfectly, Val. After you threatened Kramer, you knew exactly how to keep him paranoid. He was convinced that someone was going to curse him dead—but you don't believe in that stuff yourself. You waited until he was completely isolated, and then you showed up at his door. And he let you in, paranoia be damned, because you were there to seduce him. Hell, you didn't even have to try—he has a fetish for dark-skinned ladies. Not that you knew that, but... anyway.

"You let him believe that you were there to cheat on your boyfriend with him, and you even got in the bathtub with him—you had to, to make it clean. And when he was  _least_  expecting it..." He pauses for effect as he imagines the scene in his head: "You slashed him right through the throat. And then you left before any blood could get on you, knowing the bathtub water would wash away your prints, and that it would all look like a suicide."

By the time he's finished, Valerie is sitting on the arm of the couch, crying into her hands, and Andre is still looking on in horror.

"Damn," Gus mutters as an aside. "Can someone say Kill Bill volume 3?"

" _Dude_." Shawn hits him on the arm and grins in spite of what's going on. "I totally had the Kill Bill sirens playing in my head when I was imagining it. Also: tell me Valerie does  _not_  look like Copperhead."

"...She totally does."

And then as he glances back over to her, Shawn realizes he needs to wrap this up. So he simply walks over until he's directly in front of her.

When she sees his face, there's a tiny bit of hope in her eyes. "You understand, don't you?"

"I do," he says truthfully. "She's your best friend and you'd do anything for her. But if you love her enough to kill for her, then you also won't let her go to prison for something she didn't do."

Valerie's expression goes stone cold, but Shawn is perfectly confident she won't back out and try to escape. He would go to prison for Gus's sake, after all.

"Come on, Val. The sooner you come with us, the sooner Olivia gets to go back home."

After another several seconds of hesitation, she finally stands up, gives Andre one last apologetic look, and starts towards the door.

"Woah, not so fast," Shawn says, stepping behind her—and possibly with too much pride, he pulls the handcuffs out of his pockets and slaps them on her wrists.

Now, it's a _real_  arrest.

Gus high-fives him as they escort her out of the apartment, leaving Andre behind without another word.

 _Poor guy,_  he can't help but think.

 

* * *

 

 

No one really looks their way when he brings her into the station, which is kind of disappointing. Somehow Shawn imagined walking in, slow-motion, while everyone looked on in awe—but he supposes, now, that wouldn't have made sense.

As he takes her upstairs, though, one person does stop and stare.

"Valerie? What are you doing with Shawn and Gus—and... why is she in handcuffs?"

It takes a moment for him to connect the dots, but then he remembers—

" _Hey, I know that place. It's a witch store near the Presidio District. Uh, Francine's friend Valerie goes there sometimes..."_

Damn.

"Sorry, Buzz," he tells him with a grimace. "She's a murderer."

After finding Juliet so that Valerie can give her official confession and making sure that Olivia will get to go back home, Shawn still has one more thing to take care of regarding the case. Well, more like the post-case situation.

He finds Mr. Lane what seems to be very shortly after the man left the conference room, and he takes a not-so-wild guess where he's headed.

"Heyyyy, Laney, you off to tell the Chief that you're... ' _outraged that my daughter was mistreated for nothing,_ ' and that you want to sue the SBPD?"

"Very, good, psychic," he says without stopping. Shawn hurries after him, and Gus struggles to keep up.

"You know, most people would be grateful that I proved her innocence so quickly."

"You just arrested her best friend. She's distraught."

"Okay, well, here's the thing: If you  _don't_  try to file a lawsuit, I won't tell anyone that you were the one who withdrew all that money from your daughter's account."  _That_  makes him stop. Shawn smirks and adds, "Which isn't exactly illegal, since it's technically your money, but you don't want anyone to know that you were temporarily bankrupt, do you? That, and you kept the information from the police, which I'm sure counts as hindering a police investigation."

Lane stares at him defeatedly, but doesn't seem to actually give up until several moments later when he opens his mouth to say something, closes it, and then starts walking back to the conference room.

Once he's out of sight, Shawn and Gus do a brief victory dance in the hallway. It's mostly just jumping around and a lot of elaborate fist-bumps.

"Dude, how did you know he'd been bankrupt?"

"There's a tear in his suit—if he could afford a new one, he'd have it."

"Kind of a leap, isn't it?"

"Half of everything I ever say is a leap," Shawn reminds him.

They continue in the direction Lane had been going, since that happens to be the way out of the building and they're both ready to get the hell out of here. Or at least Gus is—Shawn stops him in the middle of him talking about how they should have movie night to celebrate, and tells Gus to go out to the car without him.

"I wanna go ask the Chief about how much we're getting paid—since, y'know, we pretty much did it on our own."

"Oh, yeah—cool."

It technically isn't a lie; he  _does_  want to figure out the payment situation, though Vick's office isn't the first place he goes to once Gus leaves him behind.

Lassiter isn't at his desk, nor does he seem to be anywhere on this floor. When Shawn finally does head to Vick's office to ask, though, she steps out to invite him in first. Meaning there's something else on her mind (hopefully a check?).

"Hey, uh—"

"I have to say, Mr. Spencer, that was impressive work. Though from what Miss Cooper's told us, she likely would have turned herself in eventually anyway, had you not found her.  _Still_ ," she stresses, "she wasn't even on our radar, and you seem to have saved us from a serious lawsuit. So you'll still get paid."

"Oh. Well that's good. Anyway—"

"One more thing: I would appreciate it if you never attempt to arrest a killer by yourself again. You're a very helpful consultant, but first and foremost you're a  _civilian_ , so please remember that. And... frankly, if Henry even finds out about this time, he'll never let either of us hear the end of it."

Shit, he actually didn't think about that.

"Duly noted, Chief," he says (and he means it). And then he very nearly turns to leave before asking what he wanted to ask in the first place—"Also, where's Lassiter?"

She looks vaguely amused that he wants to know.

"Oh—I sent him home on a temporary leave. Thought it would be best for him, considering... all that's happened."

That second part almost seems like a question.

"Yeah, probably," he agrees, turning to leave. "Thanks."

When he climbs into the passenger's seat of the Blueberry, Gus is immediately back to the conversation they were having before. But Shawn is a little too deep in his own thoughts to react immediately.

"Hold on—what?"

"I said I've been in the mood to watch it ever since we left the apartment."

"Watch what?"

" _Kill Bill_ —you wanna add it to the movie marathon?"

"Oh. Sure, definitely. You can never go wrong with Uma Thurman. I wanna make a stop first, though."

 

* * *

 

 

Rowan doesn't seem surprised when he walks in—in fact, she looks oddly pleased.

"Nice to see you again, Shawn," she says politely. "Are you here about your friend?"

"Well, uh... I want to ask you for a favor."

"Shoot."

"Can you take the curse off of him?"

Her smile doesn't disappear, but it loses some of its mirth. "No can do. Surely you don't think he doesn't deserve it—he's an asshole, he's rude, he's the  _worst_  kind of skeptic—"

"And he's my friend," Shawn counters. "And actually _yes_ , I do think he doesn't deserve it! It's only been three days and he's already suspended from work because of the shit that's happened. At this rate he'll be dead by the end of the week—I mess with him literally constantly, but he doesn't deserve to  _die_."

"Oh." Rowan's eyes widen, and then pulls out a book from behind the counter and begins flipping through it. "That's... much quicker than it's generally meant to work."

"See!"

"But it's no accident—Detective Lassiter's feelings are affecting it. He's too skeptical and stubborn for his own good. There's nothing I can do about that."

Shawn can't believe how little she seems to care, but he knows he needs to remain polite for there to be any chance of getting Rowan to undo it. And also to avoid getting cursed himself.

"Okay, I admit it can be really frustrating, but his stubbornness  _is_  endearing sometimes," he tells her, earning a slight frown. "It's just part of who he is! And  _he_  can't do anything about it either. Can't you just... give him a break?"

"I already did," she argues. "I gave him an out—it's his own fault if he doesn't want to use it."

He has to seriously resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Come on, you know he's not that kind of guy."

"Do you think I'd have used it if he  _was_  that kind of guy?"

"I— _exactly_!" This witch is fucking killing him. "I mean... okay. Look. I don't know everything that's gone on in Lassiter's life, but it's been kind of fucked up, okay? He wanted to be a cop since he was like, eight years old, which may or may not have something to do with his dad not being around. He has this irrational fear of snowglobes, which... I dunno, but it's probably linked to  _something_  traumatic. And he stayed separated from his wife for  _five_  years before finally getting divorced and moving on. So maybe he's a bit of an ass, but it makes sense. And... honestly, it's kinda my fault, since I wind him up all the time. Please, he  _deserves_  a break."

For a moment he's afraid that Rowan still feels that it's not her problem, but then she seems impressed by his little speech.

"...Okay," she finally agrees, lips stretching up into a smirk. "I'll give him a break."

Shawn falls against the counter in relief, bracing himself on his elbows.

"Oh my god, Rowan— _thank you_. So much. If you ever have a personal case—" He pauses to grab for his wallet and pull out one of the Psych businesscards he carries around with him, then hands it over. "I'll do it free of charge."

She thanks him, and he turns to leave—but then he figures he ought to tell her:

"Oh, by the way, I solved Bill's case. And you were wrong about him being a nice guy, he was actually a rapist. Sorry."

 

* * *

 

 

"Lassie, I'm here!"

He got there as soon as he could—movie night be damned, he's not going to ignore a text like that from Lassiter.

 

_I need your help. I'm at my house and it's an emergency._

 

When there's no immediate answer, he bangs on the door again.

"It's open!"

Of all the things Shawn imagined he might find when he got here, what he sees is certainly not one of them. He doesn't even immediately see Lassiter when he opens the door; he hears the sound of water running, though, and follows it to the kitchen.

And there, Lassiter stands in a t-shirt and boxers, hunched over the sink with a literal raincloud above his head.

"...Shit, Lassie."

At that, Carlton turns around to see Spencer staring at him like he's the second coming of Jesus. And who can blame him?

"I'll get it over with right now, since I know you'll want to say 'I told you so.' Curses are real, and so is magic."

Surprisingly, Shawn doesn't immediately retort with an  _"I told you so,"_  but rather just keeps staring. Carlton wonders if he can tell, under all the rain, how much of a fucking mess he is. How much dignity he's lost.

It should be evident enough in the way his chest heaves when he says, "I need your help, Spencer."

"Yeah, I got that," he says slowly, stepping forward. Mainly to get a better look at the raincloud, because holy  _fuck_. This is some X-Files shit. "...How long have you had this thing?"

"Since, um." God, he's so mentally exhausted he can't even think straight. "A couple hours, I think. Maybe earlier—it started while I was asleep and it woke me up."

Out of curiosity, Shawn reaches forward and sticks his hand directly into the cloud. It feels like air, mostly... just really  _moist_  air.

Meanwhile Carlton watches his fascination, and he doesn't even have the energy to be pissed off.

"Spencer,  _please_."

Oh. "Right, sorry. Wait—you said a couple hours?"

"Yeah?"

That's about the time he convinced Rowan to give Lassiter a break. Or, supposedly convinced her. Was she messing with him? Why would she lie to him about that? He doesn't understand.

"...And you just kept trying to get rid of it by yourself for like, an hour and a half before texting me?"

"I... yeah, I did," Carlton admits, breaking just slightly more than he already was. "I did, because I didn't want to have to deal with the fact that it was real, okay? And I didn't want to need your help—but I do, because there is a fucking  _cloud_  inside my house and following me wherever I go, which is  _not_  supposed to be possible, and... and you know about this stuff."

Carlton swallows and closes his eyes for a moment—and when he opens them, Shawn's mouth is slowly but surely stretching into a grin.

"Are you saying that you believe I'm psychic?"

At least he knows now that his dignity hasn't disappeared  _completely_ , otherwise he would say yes.

"What I'm  _saying_... Shawn," he starts, noticing the significant change in expression at the informality, "is that you're my last resort. I—I can't live like this, I can't go to work with a cloud constantly raining on me, I can't  _sleep_ , I can't—I can't be paranoid like this, Shawn. Do you know how many guns I keep in my house? If my luck's supposed to keep getting worse, at this rate one of them's just going to go off. For the past hour I've been scared to do anything but just stand here, and even then I keep thinking of every terrible thing that could possibly happen to me, and... You're the only one who can help me, okay? I can't fix this."

Shawn feels like the grin has been wiped from his face permanently. Seeing Lassiter like this—desperate, soaked to the bone, hair clinging to his face... he might as well be crying. Fuck, is he? His eyes are red enough. There's no way to tell, with all that rain.

The guilt weighs him down like a ton of bricks, and it only gets worse the longer he looks at him.

"Lassie," he says quietly, "I—I'm not..."

He softly shakes his head, mouth stuck open as he hesitates to finish. And for a moment he sees recognition in Lassiter's eyes, as well as a catch in his breath, and it's clear that he knows.

But Shawn chickens out.

"...a witch," he finishes lamely. It's hard to tell if Lassiter is actually disappointed. "I'm not a witch. Psychic stuff isn't magic, it's... it's really not the same. I'm sorry, Lass, I don't know how to help."

It's clear that he wants to, though, which Carlton supposes counts for something. Maybe he'd be angry if he wasn't just so tired, and engulfed by a sudden hopelessness.

He doesn't know what else to do—he wants to argue, but how? If Spencer really doesn't know how to fix this, then that's it. He's stuck like this and he'll just have to get used to it until he dies. Which could be anytime within the next week, really. This is what he gets for being rude to a witch.

_I guess I learned my lesson._

"Wait," Shawn says abruptly, perking him up a bit. "Did you ever actually try... kissing someone?"

"O'Hara suggested I try it with her," he tells him. "Platonically. Since platonic love is a thing, I guess, and Rowan didn't specify... but it obviously didn't work."

So it has to be romantic, then.

Almost as though they're out of his control, Shawn's memories move rapidly in front of him: The way Rowan looked at him when she decided on the way Lassiter could break the curse. The way  _Lassiter_  looked at him when he insisted there was no one who could help him fix this. And... the fact that Rowan told him she'd give Lassiter a break, then immediately did  _this_  to him.

And all at once, it makes sense.

"Okay, Lassie, I have an idea." It takes an almost painful amount of courage to even look up at him in that moment, but he does it. And he takes a breath. "Just hold still."

The next thing Carlton knows, there are hands gripping either side of his face, and Spencer is kissing him.  _Shawn_  is kissing him. And... and he seems to have forgotten how to breathe.

Wait, no, he remembers. It's just hard to get enough air when Shawn is taking all of his breath, and when his chest is burning so hot and there's so much rain in front of his face—

Except there isn't. It takes him a moment to notice because he's so distracted by this kiss, but...

"It stopped," Shawn whispers, pulling away. He briefly feels like he forgot how to breathe, too.

"...It did."

They're both so relieved that it worked that, for a moment, neither of them are hit with the reality of what that  _means_.

And when they are, it hits them so hard that they're too overwhelmed to react. A licensed professional might even say they're in shock.

But mostly Carlton.

"You don't seem surprised," he breathes.

Shawn is still so close. He could kiss him again, right now, if he could only force himself to move. He doesn't know if he'll ever move again. He doesn't feel like his brain could possibly handle it, having to process motor skills while constantly reliving the feeling of Shawn's lips on his, and also simply _knowing_  the fact of what just happened all at once.

That is, the fact that the cloud is gone and the curse is broken. The fact that Shawn's the one who broke that curse. The fact that this means that he—

"Should I be?" Shawn breathes back.

"Well... I am."

_Because it's impossible. You can't._

"I mean... to be fair, it only started making sense to me a couple minutes ago."

Shawn's overwhelming jumble of emotions begins dissolving into pure happiness, and he suddenly feels an intense urge to close the distance again—not out of obligation, but because he's waited this long and there's no way he's stopping at just one kiss. Because he knows he's allowed to. Because now... he knows that Lassiter  _loves_  him.

Carlton feels the shock drain from his body as Shawn kisses him a second time. He can move his arms, at least, as they come up to wrap around him, desperately pulling him closer.

Curse aside, he never imagined it would happen like this. If he ever had hope for this to happen at all, it was in a sexually charged fantasy, or based around their usual friction, and either way nothing real, nothing lasting... He never could have been this optimistic.

And really, he still can't.

"I thought...," he starts to say, muffled by Shawn's lips in the middle of another kiss. Shawn pulls away after a moment, though, and looks at him. "I thought you and—uh, O'Hara..."

Shawn blinks. "What?"

"I thought you two had a thing." He's a little more confident now, but still quiet. "Not that I ever believed it would work out, but..."

"Well—"  _Kinda?_  Somehow he never thought Lassiter noticed. "Don't we also have a thing?"

"Clearly."

That makes Shawn let out a breathy laugh, and Carlton smiles, for just a moment. He didn't really mean it as a joke, but he feels a little more at ease regardless.

"To be honest, Lass... I think I've spent a lot of time—the past year especially, just... going back and forth. Between pursuing you, and pursuing Jules, and pursuing  _both_  of you, and... sometimes, neither. I kept losing hope. And I wanted to make it with at least one of you—shit, I know how that sounds. But the thing is, Lassie... I was in love with you first."

In spite of what just happened, that comes as a great surprise.

At the very least he didn't expect to actually  _hear_  it.

Shawn is holding onto his arms and staring up at him hopefully, and Carlton... doesn't know what to say. He doesn't even know if he can believe this.

"Lassie?"

"So." He hesitates and clears his throat. "You really...?"

Shawn can't tell if it's fear or just plain unfamiliarity with the word that's keeping him from saying it. Either way he can't really blame him.

"Jesus, Lassie, was the cloud disappearing not proof enough?"

"I just mean—"

"Is it that hard to believe? Have I not been obvious enough? I mean,  _fuck_ , Lassie, I literally  _told_  you outright during that shark case. I hoped you might take the hint."

Of course, it makes sense  _now_  that he had been serious, but at the time, Carlton had no choice but to assume that he was joking. Or at the best, exaggerating his pride for him in the moment.

And why would he ever have assumed otherwise? Shawn's been pushing his buttons since day one. Winding him up all the time, proving him wrong, making him feel like a lesser detective... and yet, somehow, giving him exactly the kind of praise he needs. Building him up when he genuinely needed it.

But he's always thought that Shawn was just fucking with his feelings on purpose. That somehow (in a non-psychic way) he knew about Carlton's deep admiration for and attraction to him and that he was only ever making fun of that.

He wants to be angry, or at least to argue that  _no, you weren't obvious enough_ —but Carlton himself isn't exactly the poster child for expressing love in a conventional manner, so.

"Did you really never notice?" Shawn asks after a few seconds of silence. "I've tried to let you know. A  _lot_. But you weren't responding, so I thought..."

"I noticed that you were attracted to me," he finally says. "Hardly a week goes by that you don't sit on me, or slap my ass, or at least... comment on my sternbush. I'm not an  _idiot_."

"Then why—?"

"I didn't want a one-night stand with you, Spencer, or any friends with benefits bullshit—I never had any notion that it was anything more than sexual, or a stupid crush that you would get over the way you've always gotten over everything else... I couldn't  _do_  that. I can't. I need something serious or nothing at all."

He's shaking, just slightly. Whether it's from his emotions running on high or if he's just shivering, he isn't entirely sure.

Shawn can feel himself shaking a bit, too. But mostly just his chest, and his breath is coming out soft but erratic as he stares at Lassiter. The look in the man's eyes is so intense he imagines that he must be a pinch away from crying.

And then he starts nodding. Slowly at first, and then faster as he pulls himself closer a third time and breathes,

"I can be serious."

A wave of relief crashes over him as Shawn pushes his hair back from his face, hooks his fingers around his jaw, and kisses him again—harder and deeper than before. Carlton's chest grows impossibly warm as Shawn fists his shirt, and in return he tangles his hand a bit too tightly in Shawn's hair.

It doesn't occur to either of them how much rain got onto the kitchen floor until, after about a minute of just standing and making out, Carlton decides to back himself up onto the counter and slips in the process.

Shawn catches him, though.

"...Maybe we should clean that up."

"We should clean you up first," he says. "You're still soaked."

"So are you, now."

Shawn looks down at the wet spot on his shirt—he'd barely noticed before, what with his mind being preoccupied and all.

"...You got some clothes for me to borrow, then, or are you cool with me just staying naked while they're in the dryer?"

The suggestive grin he then gives him makes Carlton simultaneously annoyed and desperate to leave the kitchen  _immediately_.


	6. Chapter 6

The thing about luck, as Shawn has heard it, is that it works completely at random. Some people have an average amount of luck in their lifetime—terrible things might happen, but the good things even the scale. Some people are lucky in different ways than others.

Karma doesn't matter; there are people who do nothing but kind things and have absolutely terrible luck their whole lives, and vice versa. And the thing about that is, well, it's not really a matter of  _luck_. It's just what the universe decides to throw at you for no reason in particular.

Shawn never exactly believed in it before, but now that he's seen a real curse happen before his own two eyes, it only makes sense: When some force other than the universe itself affects a person's luck, such as a genuinely magic lucky charm or a curse, the universe will end up correcting it once that thing is gone.

So in the case of his curse being broken, if the universe truly operates by a code of balance, then Lassiter should be getting  _extremely_  lucky tonight.

Though in the moment, Shawn feels like the lucky one. Pinned against the bedroom door, Lassie's bare chest flush against him and his mouth on his neck (god, he's got a  _magic_  mouth)... Fuck. He's trying to speak, but his thoughts are jumbled and still somehow moving a thousand miles an hour.

"Do you remember the, ah—the bank robbery a couple years ago?"

Carlton's chest tightens, for a moment, at the memory. He presses his fingers deeper into Shawn's hips and continues kissing along his jawline as he breathes, "How could I forget?"

"You were so worried about me." That makes Carlton stop, and he pulls back to see Shawn's swollen lips stretched into a dazed smile. "And possessive. It was really sweet... and  _hot_. The way you pulled me away from Luntz? And the way you were acting on the drive to save Stubbins's wife...  _God_ , I all but asked you to fuck me when it was over. I wanted you to, so  _bad_ , Lassie. Did you want to? Because I waited at the Psych office all night, just in case you stopped by, and I even stretched myself so I'd be ready if you did. I was so ready, Lass, I wanted you to fuck me against the wall and I was so disappointed when you never showed..."

Whether it's Shawn just trying to get him painfully hard or the truth, it's working.  _Very_  well.

Grinding his hips forward (and eliciting a gasp from Shawn), Carlton kisses him on the mouth once more, and then leaves a trail up his jaw until he can whisper into his ear.

"Is that what you want? You want me to fuck you against this wall?"

"Well, technically we're against a door right now—" Carlton grinds against him again, and he groans. " _Yeah_. Yes, Lassie, please..."

Honestly, he's so exhausted. He's hardly been able to sleep in the past couple days and he's been through so much that he initially figured they'd just rut against each other until they both came and then he could fall asleep—but  _god_. Seeing Shawn like this,  _hearing_  him like this... Carlton will give him whatever the fuck he wants.

"Turn around."

 

* * *

 

 

It's not even that late—Shawn could easily leave Lassiter to sleep and return to Gus, and it wouldn't take much to get him fully energized again. But he doesn't. He merely texts his friend that they'll just have to reschedule movie night entirely, and then crawls into bed.

Carlton doesn't think much of it. The whole situation is still a bit surreal, and it honestly feels like he's living out a dream, but it only makes sense that Shawn would stay. He's so tired, at least, that he couldn't analyze this further even if he wanted to. All he can focus on his how nice it feels to have Shawn curled up against him, one arm thrown over his chest and holding him tight.

With his remaining energy, and almost unconsciously, Carlton brings an arm up to Shawn's back and rubs it gently.

"Don't stop," Shawn mumbles a moment later—which piques Carlton's curiosity enough to wake him up just slightly.

"...Is that some weird sexual thing?"

Shawn laughs breathily into his shoulder. "Nah, it'll just help me sleep. Why, do you want it to be a sexual thing?"

He can feel Shawn grin against him, and he decides not to dignify that with an answer.

He also doesn't stop rubbing his back, as requested.

 

* * *

 

 

Carlton wakes up to Shawn's hand in his hair, and hot breath against his neck.

For a moment he thinks Shawn might still be asleep, but then he feels teeth graze against the shell of his ear, nibbling down to the lobe, and there is  _no_  way he could be doing that unconsciously.

Furthermore, when the sensation makes him let out an involuntary moan, he hears Shawn giggle softly.

"My ears are  _sensitive_ , Spencer," he groans.

"I know," he mutters back, and then immediately returns to teasing them.

Finally, Carlton opens his eyes and turns his head, effectively pulling his ears out of Shawn's reach. Or at least one of them.

"So  _that's_  why you kept tugging on them when I got that haircut last year."

Shawn just grins. "Guilty as charged. Though in my defense, Lassie, they stuck out so much that they were practically  _begging_  to be pulled. I'd have kissed and bitten them too, but... you know. Giving you boners at work is fun, but making you come in your pants might be a little too embarrassing."

Carlton frowns, somewhat annoyed but mostly overwhelmed with the urge to kiss the stupid grin right off of Shawn's stupid face. Which, as it occurs to him after a moment, he's allowed to do now. So he does.

"Speaking of work...," Shawn mumbles into his lips several seconds later, "what are we gonna tell everyone?"

Carlton pulls away and sits up almost immediately, and Shawn feels slightly amused that  _he_  was the one who thought about it first.

"I mean, we don't  _have_  to, but—"

"But they'll suspect," Carlton finishes. "Since the curse is gone... Though no one but you knows about the raincloud."

"You could just let everyone believe Jules's platonic kiss worked," he suggests, which earns him a look of surprise.

"You're... okay with that?" He figured Shawn would want to be open. Or at the very least, that he'd be afraid that Carlton wanting to keep it a secret meant he was ashamed.

But he just shrugs. "Sure. For a while, at least. I mean... it's technically an inter-office relationship, so. Don't want you to get in trouble."

"Oh."  _Wow._  "That's very... responsible of you."

"Don't ever call me that again," Shawn says immediately. It's only partially a joke.

"Probably won't ever have much of a reason to," Carlton snipes.

Though he did just refer to the two of them as a  _relationship_ , which they both know is a pretty huge step in maturity on his part, even if he didn't necessarily mean to say it. And even if it might not accurately describe them quite yet.

Because in spite of the deep and specific feelings that were established between them last night, this is still a new development. It makes both of them incredibly happy, of course, and Shawn  _did_  promise that he could be serious, but committed relationships are foreign to him. And Carlton has gone years without really  _any_  relationships.

And just because they feel strongly enough now that it can break a curse, that doesn't mean they'll feel that way forever. With literal magic involved, it's hard for Shawn, at least, not to feel sure that they will—but he's always had trouble conceptualizing the future anyway.

"Hey, um. I don't want you to feel obligated," Shawn decides to tell him a minute later, after more kissing. "I mean... if this ever goes south, you don't have to stay with me just because a witch and a raincloud said—"

"Shut up." He has to admit—he likes Responsible Shawn, but this is a little too much. Carlton doesn't want to hear about the possible end of this thing (relationship?) when it's only just started. "Just. Shut up, Spencer."

As he dips down to kiss him again, shifting to straddle him as well, Shawn swears he can hear an "I love you" amongst Lassiter's breaths.

 

* * *

 

 

"Hey—last night, I think you were about to admit something."

Shawn's heart skips a beat, and his head snaps over at once. Meanwhile Lassiter, who is now buttoning up his shirt, doesn't seem accusatory at all. He's calm, in fact.

"Look, you don't have to tell me right away," Carlton says, noticing how deer-caught-in-headlights Shawn looks.

There's a long pause, and Shawn blinks about four times before he finally opens his mouth.

"...Really?"

"It's not like I don't already know."

"Well, _yeah_ , but..." He can't believe how suddenly and openly they're talking about this. Honestly, he's never really thought too much about what it would be like when he inevitably had to tell the truth. Of course Lassiter's known all along, but Shawn still always figured that if he ever had to admit it, it would be a much more emotionally charged situation. Like last night.

"We're definitely going to have a talk about it," Carlton assures him. "I'm just saying... I don't need to hear the details right this second. To tell the truth I don't even  _want_  to—I mean, I'm sure however it is you actually solve cases is much more impressive than the fake-psychic theatrics you pull, but I've been obsessing over it for so long that now I'm not sure if I'm ready to know the exact truth. Does that make sense?"

Shawn can't help but be impressed.

"I... yeah, Lassie, it does."

He promptly steps over to help with Lassiter's tie—not that he needs help, but it's a cheesy romantic gesture that frankly, he's been dying to do.

"Sometimes, honestly...," Carlton starts to admit because now he feels he might as well, "I get comfortable, relying on your visions and not worrying about how impossible they seem, or what you must have done to get the information otherwise. Even if I know you're lying, I guess... it's just nice to have something to believe in."

He would probably regret saying all that if Shawn didn't look so starry-eyed afterward, and if he didn't take the opportunity the  _moment_  Carlton closes his mouth to pull him down by the tie for a kiss.

"Oh damn, I forgot to tell you," Shawn says, pulling away abruptly. "I solved the case. Olivia didn't do it—her friend Val, who also happens to be Andre's girlfriend, did. Oh, and I convinced Lane not to file any kind of lawsuit. You're welcome."

Judging by the look on Lassiter's face, it was a good idea not to mention that he also arrested Valerie by himself.

 

**The End.**

**(for now)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Listen to the unofficial soundtrack](http://8tracks.com/captainlucifer/you-astound-me)]  
> [[Official fic graphic](http://luciferofficial.tumblr.com/post/127741865046/strange-magic-a-shawnlassiter-casefic-read)]  
> -
> 
> This started off as a stupid, cheesy idea, and I'm honestly so proud of what it ended up being. Hope you all liked it.
> 
> EDIT: Almost 2 years after posting, I realized that I had totally forgotten that Shawn was dating Abigail for most of season 4, and some things mentioned in this fic imply that he was single during that time. So. I guess this exists in a slight au where Shawn and Abigail dated very briefly if at all, instead of being canon-compliant up until now? Then again, this already takes place in an au where magic is explicitly real, so I guess it's not a huge deal.


End file.
